ArticleScientific reports2017
Visual acuity of the honey bee retina and the limits for feature detection.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Photoreceptor recordings reveal remarkable acuity in small solitary bees compared with larger species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Fine stripe patterns disrupt honey bee landings via spatial aliasing.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Article
- Effects of object motion on visual acuity in honeybees.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- A Deep Learning Biomimetic Milky Way Compass.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Spatial resolution and optical sensitivity in the compound eyes of two common European wasps, Vespula germanica and Vespula vulgaris.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Computer Vision Techniques Demonstrate Robust Orientation Measurement of the Milky Way Despite Image Motion.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Strawberry varieties differ in pollinator-relevant floral traits.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Allometric scaling of a superposition eye optimizes sensitivity and acuity in large and small hawkmoths.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- High-speed imaging of light-induced photoreceptor microsaccades in compound eyes.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Spatial resolution and sensitivity of the eyes of the stingless bee, Tetragonula iridipennis.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2022Article
- A new, fluorescence-based method for visualizing the pseudopupil and assessing optical acuity in the dark compound eyes of honeybees and other insects.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Numerosities and Other Magnitudes in the Brains: A Comparative View.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Article
- Hawkmoth lamina monopolar cells act as dynamic spatial filters to optimize vision at different light levels.Science advances · 2020Article
- Spatial Vision and Visually Guided Behavior in Apidae.Insects · 2019Review
- A flexible geometry for panoramic visual and optogenetic stimulation during behavior and physiology.Journal of neuroscience methods · 2019Article
- Bumblebee visual allometry results in locally improved resolution and globally improved sensitivity.eLife · 2019Article
- Article
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3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Visual abilities of the honey bee have been studied for more than 100 years, recently revealing unexpectedly sophisticated cognitive skills rivalling those of vertebrates. However, the physiological limits of the honey bee eye have been largely unaddressed and only studied in an unnatural, dark state. Using a bright display and intracellular recordings, we here systematically investigated the angular sensitivity across the light adapted eye of honey bee foragers. Angular sensitivity is a measure of photoreceptor receptive field size and thus small values indicate higher visual acuity. Our recordings reveal a fronto-ventral acute zone in which angular sensitivity falls below 1.9°, some 30% smaller than previously reported. By measuring receptor noise and responses to moving dark objects, we also obtained direct measures of the smallest features detectable by the retina. In the frontal eye, single photoreceptors respond to objects as small as 0.6° × 0.6°, with >99% reliability. This indicates that honey bee foragers possess significantly better resolution than previously reported or estimated behaviourally, and commonly assumed in modelling of bee acuity.
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