The Dorsal Compound Eye of Simuliid Flies:

Abstract

Abstract Compound Eye, Light-Quantum Noise The highly specialized dorsal compound eye of male Simuliids is especially adapted to detect during flight the females which are very small animals (1×3 mm). At dawn, the eye functions close to the physical limit imposed by the quantum fluctuations of light. In bright illuminations, light-qauntum noise is not a limiting factor as can be shown by behavioural experiments.