[BEE] Adrian Horridge's new book

[DaveO]

Our friend Adrian Horridge has just published a new book which makes "interesting" reading.

 

The discovery of a visual system

 

https://www.cabi.org/bookshop/book/9781789240894

 

Dave

[enricosavazzi]

There is also an earlier book (2011) by the same author: What does the honeybee see? And how do we know? A critique of scientific reason.

[Andrea B.]

I've read most of the 2011 book (free and downloadable). I had always wished Horridge discussed UV more in that book. But it was an excellent write-up.

 

Thanks Dave for the link to the new work.

[Andrea B.]

I'm ordering the book. It is rather expensive, but over the years I've become fascinated with bee vision. Equally interesting in Horridge's book is the discussion of previous scientific work in bee vision, some of which was ignored by later researchers, some of which contained misinterpretations.

 

The book is less expensive in electronic form, Kindle for example.

[DaveO]

Andrea,

 

As far as I can work out, after reading through all the latest book - becoming a little "bee-vision" shocked in the process, the major addition in the new 2019 work is chapter 5 "How bees distinguish colours and modulation" [You can tell this book is published in the UK as colours is spelled exactly that way].

 

His papers covering this were all published in 2015 and 2016 and are listed on his website although that site isn't responding at this moment. Note that ALL the new measurements were done in a "Y" choice device with a polycarbonate "top" to deliberately exclude UV.

 

In chapter 4 he mentions the specialised ommatidia along the dorsal rim of the bee eye that respond to polarised blue and UV sky light and which may serve as a "sky compass" for navigation. He also observes "the UV cells in each ommatidium are the presumed inputs for the righting response in flight and for providing the optimum exit direction in the escape response". "Foliage and flowers reflect little UV and it is doubtful that UV assists in the selection of flowers during foraging because bees distinguish blue so much better. In fact UV inhibits the detection of blue or white and repells bees so that they refuse to land".

 

I will put my thoughts about all this together in a separate post when I have had time to digest his book.

 

Dave