How many eyes do insects have?
- We got many answers for this question - most of them
"two." We're going to try
to make the questions a little more challenging or at
least more interesting in the future. We can't learn alot
about our BUG-Freinds if we just get blank pages of info
and... two. It is nice to know you are all still bugging
along, though... so, here's a short list of folks who
responded (if they gave us any information):
-
- C.B. age 18 from Lake School in
Lorraine, Ohio
- M.F. age 10 from Winnsboro Elementary in
Winnsboro, Texas
- Both said "two"
- D.G. age 10 from Twin Lakes, Wisconsin and
M. age 8 from Topsail Elementary School
in Hamstead, North Carolina, said: All insects
have two compound eyes (Good answer! But you
should always be careful about saying things like
"ALL" - especially with bugs, there's ALWAYS
exceptions!)
-
- A. from IS202 in Queens, New York said: 2--Adults
have up to two compund eyes and up to three ocelli
-
- C.A. age 16 from Charles hays Secondary
School in Prince Rupert, Brittish Columbia said: 3
-
- K.G. age 11 from Enterprise (not
"Entoprise"!?) School in Compton,
California said: They have 8 (Lots
of folks confuse Insects with spiders when it comes to
eyes. Most spiders have 8 eyes.)
-
- but of course, our favorite answer was:
- K. Hanson from Anderson Elementary
School in Conroe, Texas said: From my class of
third graders, we think insects have two eyes with
compound vision. (How about that, folks?! A
whole third grade class answered this one! Nice job to all
K. Hanson's 3rd graders!)
-
Well, if you ask BUGMAN, he'll tell you that it
varies! (That's sort of a standard answer when we
don't really know the
answer!) The reason we don't know the answer is because
there are a lot of answers - it really does vary. Most (but not
all) insects have compound
eyes. That means they have a bunch
(sometimes thousands) of little eyes in what look like two
big eyes. Also, most insects have more eyes! They're called
"ocelli" (one of them by itself is called an
"ocellus"). These are often referred to as simple eyes.
It doesn't seem right to think of anything so cool as a
functional eye on an animal that small as being "simple"!
The ocelli mostly see light and shadows. They probably help
the insect tell when a shadow (danger) passes overhead or when it is night and day. Knowing when it is night and day
is obviously important to know when to be active. If you are a nocturnal
insect you are active at night and if you are a diurnal
insect you are active during the day. But it also helps the
insect figure out what time of year it is. Long days and short
nights usually means summer. Short days and long nights usually
means winter. If you think about this winter in New England -
warm, warm, warm, for winter - you should see why it is important
for insects (and trees) to use the length of the days to figure
out when to prepare for the season changes.
So, how many eyes do insects have? It varies!
Go to the answers index