required reading:
Land MF, Gibson G, Horwood J, Zeil J. 1999. Fundamental differences in the optical structure of the eyes of nocturnal and diurnal mosquitos. J comp Physiol A 185. 91-103
pdf-file

Questions:

• In which parameters do the eyes of diurnal and nocturnal mosquitos differ?
• Which optical parameters should be optimised for dark adapted insect eyes?
• What are neuroanatomical possibilities for improving light sensitivity of an eye?
  
• Does it matter that in nocturnal mosquitos the image on the rhabdom tip is out of focus? Why?
• What is a pseudopupil?
  
• What is the advantage of conical rhabdoms?
  
• What does it mean for the image resolution if the rhabdoms in an insect compound eye are fused or not?
• What are the neuroanatomical consequences for superposition eyes?

optional background reading:
Land MF, Nilsson DE. 2002. Animal Eyes. Oxford Animal Biology Series.
Warrant EJ, McIntyre PD. 1993. Arthropod eye design and the physical limits to spatial resolving power. Progress in Neurobiology 40:413-461.
Land MF. 1997. Visual acuity in insects. Ann Rev Entomol 42:147-177. pdf-file.

power point slides (pdf -file 2.9MB)

insect vision links:
The Lund Vision Group, Lund, Sweden
Sussex Vision Laboratory (Mike Land)
Insect Vision Group, Cambridge, England
Visual Sciences Group, Canberra, Australia
Hans van Hateren's Lab - Department of Neurobiophysics, University of Groningen