The praying mantis is the only invertebrate known to have binocular vision. Newcastle University researchers studied the nature of 3D vision in the praying mantis.
To do this, they fit the tiny insects with the smallest 3-D glasses ever constructed. These pieces of miniature eye wear were fitted to them using bee's wax. The insects were then placed in front of a screen, on which the researchers project 3D images, designed to create the perception objects headed toward the bespectacled insects. Investigators recorded the way the insects reacted to the projections.
"Despite their minute brains, mantises are sophisticated visual hunters which can capture prey with terrifying efficiency. We can learn a lot by studying how they perceive the world," Jenny Read, who led the research into binocular vision of mantises said.
One of the objects shown to the insects is a circle, meant to simulate an impending strike on the insect. By watching errors made by the animals, the researchers were able to examine how the species processes the information.
By doing so, the team hoped to learn more about the way vision works within the species and how it may differ or resemble human physiology.
"If we find that the way mantises process 3D vision is very different to the way humans do it, then that could open up all kinds of possibilities to create much simpler algorithms for programming 3D vision into robots," Vivek Nityananda, one of the researchers involved in the study, stated in a press release.
If mantises process 3D videos similar to the way they are managed by vertebrates that would indicate that two very similar systems developed independently of each other. Monkeys and humans have been shown to process three-dimensional videos using nearly identical methods.
It was only in 1983 that biologists discovered praying mantises see in three dimensions. That year, Samuel Rossel fit a number of the insects with prisms over their eyes, changing their depth perception. The animals responded to an optical illusion, striking at a target they believed was in range.
Between experiments in the video chamber, the insects were housed in an insect room, where they were fed and rested, free of the tiny glasses.
If the praying mantis is shown to have a relatively simple, yet effective method of processing 3D information, a similar process could be employed in robots. These systems could be employed by drone aircraft and unmanned craft on the ground to avoid obstacles.
The Newcastle team created "Man, Mantis, Machine," a video announcing their research.
