How does the stick insect see?
The stick insect (Carausius morosus) is a insect in the order Phasmida. Its eyes belong to the vision type Bee, ant and locust UV trichromat.
Measured in this species: sharpness and motion (flicker fusion). Measured colour or sharpness: a measured receptor set or acuity in this species; other dials come from relatives or group defaults. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.
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What stands out
- It has 7 colour receptor classes, including ultraviolet; people have 3.
- Its sharpest vision resolves 0.07 cycles per degree: the finest stripe pattern it can tell apart from grey.
- It stops seeing flicker at 40 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks choppier to it.[12][13]
- Activity pattern: diurnal.
The six dials
Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.
| Dial | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Colour receptors 7 receptor classes: 331 nm (UVS), 345 nm (UVS), 371.5 nm (UVS), 440 nm (SWS (blue)), 480 nm (MWS (green)), 508 nm (MWS (green)), 520 nm (MWS (green)) receptor set of nearest measured relative Drosophila melanogaster (same class Insecta) | Group default | [1][2][3][4][5] |
| Ultraviolet yes: at least one receptor peaks in the ultraviolet | Group default | ||
| Sharpness | Acuity 0.07 cycles per degree median of 1 optical rows (method priority rule) | Measured | [6] |
| Angle between facets 7.5° minimum (acute-zone) interommatidial angle over sources; within caves2018: minimum (round-1 rule: mean of horizontal and vertical when both exist) | Measured | [6] | |
| Eye type compound eye | |||
| Field of view | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Sharp zones (foveas) | Number of foveas 0 median of 91 relatives in class Insecta: Empis prodromus, Rhamphomyia albidiventris, Rhamphomyia breviventris, Rhamphomyia maculipennis, Rhamphomyia marginata, Rhamphomyia murina | Group default | [7] |
| Fovea type none | Group default | [7] | |
| Night vision | Activity pattern diurnal group default: mode of tier-A values in vision type V21 within phylum Arthropoda (92 species: Apis mellifera, Bombus terrestris, Cataglyphis bicolor, Bombus impatiens, Acyrthosiphon pisum, Coccinella septempunctata) | Group default | [8][9][2][10] |
| Rods vs cones no rods (invertebrate photoreceptors) | Group default | [8][9][2][10] | |
| Motion (flicker fusion) | Flicker fusion frequency 40 Hz median of 1 rows (no bright-light flag) (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [40.0]) | Measured | [11] |
Related animals
- Western honey bee same vision type
- Bull ant (Myrmecia gulosa) same vision type
- Buff-tailed bumblebee same vision type
- Migratory locust same vision type
- Asian palm weevil same vision type
- Firefly same vision type
More insects: all insects with measured vision data.
Sources
- VPOD in-vivo (MSP / single-cell) lambda max compendium, file scp_cleaned.csv, VPOD GitHub (Frazer et al. 2025 bioRxiv 10.1101/2025.08.22.671864). github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db/tree/main/scripts_n_notebooks/vpod_ML_workflows/mine_n_match/data_sources/lmax/vpod
- Longcore T. 2023. A compendium of photopigment peak sensitivities and visual spectral response curves of terrestrial wildlife to guide design of outdoor nighttime lighting. Basic Appl Ecol 73:40-50. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2023.09.002. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8432720
- van der Kooi CJ, Stavenga DG, Arikawa K, Belusic G, Kelber A. 2021. Evolution of insect color vision: from spectral sensitivity to visual ecology. Annu Rev Entomol 66:435-461. Supplementary table. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-061720-071644
- Kirwan J. luxR 0.1.1: Underwater Light Analysis and Visual Ecology (R-universe), data species_sensitivities. github.com/JohnKirwan/luxR
- Porter ML et al. 2006 Table 1 (opsin accessions with lambda max; mostly cephalopod/arthropod) as extracted by VPOD. github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db
- Caves EM, Brandley NC, Johnsen S (2018) Visual acuity and the evolution of signals. Trends Ecol Evol 33:358-372. Supplementary Tables S1-S3.. doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.03.001
- Comparative data for dance fly eye morphology and female ornamentation (Empididae). Data: Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.rr4xgxd5z. doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rr4xgxd5z
- Johnson R, Rutowski R 2022. Color, activity period, and eye structure in four lineages of ants: Pale, nocturnal species have evolved larger eyes and larger facets than their dark, diurnal congeners. PLOS ONE. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257779
- Feuda R, Marletaz F, Bentley MA, Holland PWH. 2016. Conservation, duplication, and divergence of five opsin genes in insect evolution. Genome Biol Evol 8:579-587
- Meiri 2024. SquamBase: a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecol Biogeogr (data Zenodo 10602503).. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10602503
- Haarlem CS, Hynes C, Jackson AL, Mitchell KJ, O'Connell RG, Healy K. 2026. Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom. Nature Ecology & Evolution (doi:10.1038/s41559-026-02994-7). Figshare dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.30556475. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30556475
- Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
- Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631
Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?