Summary
Mechanical stimulation of the compound eye of the cricket Gryllus campestris induces an eye cleaning response which involves coordinated movements of the head and the forelegs. Interommatidial bristles and campaniform sensilla provide the sensory input for the behavior. The axons of these receptors project through a sidebranch of the nervus tegumentarius into the suboesophageal and prothoracic ganglion. Recordings from this nerve revealed that only information from bristles and campaniform sensilla is transmitted and that stimuli which release eye cleaning cause many units to fire. Finally, when the nerve was cut surgically, the crickets no longer cleaned the eyes on the operated side. We suggest that the mechanoreceptors on the cricket eye are tuned to detect stimuli which could disturb vision.
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Abbreviations
- SNt:
-
sidebranch of the nervus tegumentarius
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This project was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft grant Ho 463/10
The authors are indebted to Professor H. Altner, Regensburg, for the use of the scanning electron microscope facilities (DFG, AL 56/6), to Ms. R. Reutter and D. Kastenholz for assistance, to Dr. J. Tautz for advice on the electrophysiological experiments and to Professor H. Markl for his interest and criticism. We are particularly grateful to Dr. D. Sandeman for his help with the manuscript and to Dr. E. Fanning Honegger, for making available to us her long eye lashes.
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Honegger, H.W., Reif, H. & Müller, W. Sensory mechanisms of eye cleaning behavior in the cricket Gryllus campestris . J. Comp. Physiol. 129, 247–256 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00657661
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00657661