Butterflies

Butterflies may not have a human’s sharp vision, but their eyes beat us in other ways. Their visual fields are larger, they’re better at perceiving fast-moving objects, and they can distinguish ultraviolet and polarized light. Now, it turns out that one species of swallowtail butterfly from Australasia, the common bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon, pictured), known for its conspicuous blue-green markings, is even better equipped for such visual tasks. Each of their eyes, scientists report in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, contains at least 15 different types of photoreceptors, the light-detecting cells required for color vision. These are comparable to the rods and cones found in our eyes.