Insect Visual Pigment sensitive to Ultraviolet Light

Abstract

BEHAVIOURAL^1,2 and electrophysiological³ experiments have shown that the insect eye responds to ultraviolet irradiation. In the eye of the honeybee there is only a small population of special ultraviolet receptors, which are involved in colour vision. In the compound eye (superposition type) of Ascalaphus macaronius Scop. (Neuroptera, Ascalaphidae) there are two different morphological spheres. The so called frontal eye is sensitive only to ultraviolet radiation, whereas the lateral eye also responds to green light⁴. For this reason, the frontal eye seemed to us a suitable source from which to try to extract the ultraviolet-sensitive photopigment of an insect.