 螳螂虾
图中五颜六色的小家伙让所有其他动物的眼睛感到羞耻。人类接受颜色数据通过眼中的三种颜色受体，而螳螂虾(Neogonodactylus oerstedii)有12种。螳螂虾的视觉可能通过利用特别的调整，在它的特殊颜色视锥细胞中有特殊的紫外滤光器。 这种滤光器由类菌胞素氨基酸构成(MAAS)，是一种常见于海洋生物的皮肤或外骨骼的物质。通常被称作大自然的防晒霜，MAAs通常用来防止紫外线导致的生物DNA损伤;然而，螳螂虾将它们混合成一种强大的光谱过滤器。 虽然螳螂虾的复杂视知觉的原因知之甚少，但是一种可能性是紫外测定能有助于使其实现可视化，否则很难看见捕食珊瑚礁。多数生物体吸收紫外光——这些生物将更容易视作一个黑点在亮的环境下。(来源：生物帮) 原文摘要： Biological Sunscreens Tune Polychromatic Ultraviolet Vision in Mantis Shrimp Michael J. Bok3, Megan L. Porter4, Allen R. PlAce, Thomas W. Cronin Stomatopod crustaceans, or mantis shrimp, are renowned for their complex visual systems. Their array of 16 types of photoreceptors provides complex color reception, as well as linear and circular polarization sensitivity [ 1–6 ]. The least-understood components of their retina are the UV receptors, of which there are up to six distinct, narrowly tuned spectral types [ 4 ]. Here we show that in the stomatopod species Neogonodactylus oerstedii, this set of receptors is based on only two visual pigments. Surprisingly, five of the six UV receptor types contain the same visual pigment. The various UV receptors are spectrally tuned by a novel set of four short- and long-pass UV-specific optical filters in the overlying crystalline cones. These filters are composed of various mycosporine-like amino acid (MAA) pigments. Commonly referred to as “Nature’s sunscreens,” MAAs are usually employed for UV photoprotection [ 7, 8 ], but mantis shrimp uniquely incorporate them into powerful spectral tuning filters, extending and diversifying their preeminently elaborate photoreceptive arsenal. |
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