dustycat 的最愛

Digging burrow in sandy soil

It may seem like she's staring at me, but the dark spot is actually a "pseudopupil," as bees (and other insects) have compound eyes.

"Insects and crustaceans with light-coloured apposition eyes have an easily visible dark spot which has the alarming property that it moves across the eye as the observer rotates around the animal. It seems as though one is being watched. In fact this is at passive optical phenomenon that has nothing to do with the visual process itself. Whatever the background colour of the eye, the region that images the observer must look dark because it absorbs photons from the observer's direction. The dark spot (the pseudopupil) moves with the viewer because different parts of the eye image different directions in space; it is almost disappointingly simple. Often, however, the pseudopupil is more than a dark spot, and has a pattern to it which on careful inspection turns out to be an enlarged and slightly fuzzy image of the various structures around the rhabdom tip, in the focal plane of each facet lens." Land, Michael F, and Dan-Eric Nilsson. Animal Eyes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

When I woke up this morning I didn't know I'd be taking a selfie with a duck. Or running after it as it tried to take off from a wet road, which they never can. Or driving one-handed to release it at the nearest body of water. Any similarity between our hair is coincidental. Rescue mission: successful! The duck is on the left.