Opponent processing in the retinal mosaic of nymphalid butterflies

Pirih, Primož (author), Ilić, Marko (author), Meglič, Andrej (author), Belušič, Gregor (author)

The eyes of nymphalid butterflies, investigated with incident illumination, show colourful facet reflection patterns—the eye shine—which is uniform or heterogeneous, dependent on the species. Facet colours suggest that the ommatidia contain different sets of photoreceptors and screening pigments, but how the colours and the cell characteristics are associated has not been clearly established. Here, we analyse the retinae of two nymphalids, Apatura ilia, which has a uniform eyeshine, and Charaxes jasius, a species with a heterogeneous eye shine, using single-cell recordings, spectroscopy and optical pupillometry. Apatura has UV-, blue- and green-sensitive photoreceptors, allocated into three ommatidial types. The UV- and blue-sensitive cells are long visual fibres (LVFs), receiving opponent input from the green-sensitive short visual fibres (SVFs). Charaxes has an expanded set of photoreceptors, allocated into three additional, red-reflecting ommatidial types. All red ommatidia contain green-sensitive LVFs, receiving opponent input from red receptors. In both species, the SVFs do not receive any opponent input. The simple retina of Apatura with three ommatidial types and two colour-opponent channels can support trichromatic vision. Charaxes has six ommatidial types and three colour-opponent channels. Its expanded receptor set can support tetrachromatic vision.

• Language: English
• Keywords: vision, opponency, retina, photoreceptor, Nymphalidae, butterflies, zoology, physiology, neuroscience
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2022
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 377, iss. 1862, art. 20210275
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-145554
• UDC: 591
• ISSN on article: 0962-8436
• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0275
• COBISS.SI-ID: 120231171
• Publication date in RUL: 21.04.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Philosophical transactions : biological sciences
• Shortened title: Philos. trans.-R. Soc. Lond., biol. sci.
• Publisher: The Royal Society
• ISSN: 0962-8436
• COBISS.SI-ID: 13210117

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: vid, oponenca, mrežnica, fotoreceptor, pisančki, metulji, zoologija