Scallop Eyes Work Like Little Reflecting Telescopes, Researchers Find

An international group of biologists from Israel and Sweden has obtained a detailed view of a scallop’s visual system — an arrangement of up to 200 eyes they say is strikingly similar to a reflecting telescope.

Palmer et al found that spatial vision in the scallop is achieved through precise control of the size, shape, and packing density of the tiles of guanine that together make up an image-forming mirror at the back of each of the eyes. This image shows the great scallop (Pecten maximus). Image credit: Ceri Jones, Haven Diving Services.

Palmer et al found that spatial vision in the scallop is achieved through precise control of the size, shape, and packing density of the tiles of guanine that together make up an image-forming mirror at the back of each of the eyes. This image shows the great scallop (Pecten maximus). Image credit: Ceri Jones, Haven Diving Services.

Most animals use lenses to focus light onto their retina, a light-sensitive layer of tissue coating the inner portion of the eye, though certain marine organisms have adopted mirrors to create images.

Dr. Benjamin Palmer from the Weizmann Institute of Science and co-authors investigated the complex organization of the scallop’s mirror.

Using various microscopic imaging approaches, the scientists found that spatial vision in the scallop is achieved through the mirror’s layered structure located at the back of each eye, which is fine-tuned to reflect wavelengths of light that penetrate its habitat.

“Scallops have a visual system comprising up to 200 eyes, each containing a concave mirror rather than a lens to focus light,” the researchers said.

“The hierarchical organization of the multilayered mirror is controlled for image formation, from the component guanine crystals at the nanoscale to the complex 3D morphology at the millimeter level.”

“The layered structure of the mirror is tuned to reflect the wavelengths of light penetrating the scallop’s habitat and is tiled with a mosaic of square guanine crystals, which reduces optical aberrations.”

“The mirror forms images on a double-layered retina used for separately imaging the peripheral and central fields of view.”

“Our work demonstrates the remarkable control the scallop exerts over the growth and arrangement of crystals to make a highly reflective mirror capable of forming functional images,” Dr. Palmer and colleagues said.

Just as the complex optics of other animals, like lobsters, have informed telescope design, these results may pave the way to the construction of novel bio-inspired optical devices for imaging and sensing applications.

The findings appear in the December 1, 2017 issue of the journal Science.

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Benjamin A. Palmer et al. 2017. The image-forming mirror in the eye of the scallop. Science 358 (6367): 1172-1175; doi: 10.1126/science.aam9506

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