Mantis eyes

No eye series would be complete without a close look at a mantid's eyes. I had no trouble getting close enough to this set of peepers, as the mantis was 9cm long, that's getting on for 4 inches in real money.

The unique and disturbing feature of a mantid's eye, is the little black dots that follow you around. As you move your head around to another angle, the dots uncannily follow.

In fact, there is no black dot. The mantid's eye, like all other insects, is a multi-faceted compound eye and the black dot is merely light being absorbed by the facet directly facing your own eye, kind of the opposite of the 'wolf spider in the torch light' example that I quoted a couple of days ago, were the light reflects back from the eye.

I got a great full length shot of this leggy critter, but decided to stick with the eye theme. Still the dragon eye to come, I keep getting sidetracked. Maybe I will save that one for my first proper multi-stacked image.

I got Photoshop CS5 up and running this morning. Impressive is all I can say.

Dave