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Visually targeted reaching in horse-head grasshoppers.

Jeremy E Niven1, Swidbert R Ott, Stephen M Rogers

  • 1Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK. jen23@sussex.ac.uk

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|July 6, 2012
PubMed
Summary

Grasshoppers can accurately target their forelimbs to specific footholds using visual cues. They flexibly use monocular and binocular vision for precise sensorimotor transformations during visually guided reaching.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Animal Behavior
  • Biomechanics

Background:

  • Visually targeted reaching is a complex sensorimotor transformation.
  • This ability was not previously thought to exist in insects due to their smaller nervous systems.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate visually targeted reaching in horse-head grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Proscopididae).
  • To determine if grasshoppers can perform sensorimotor transformations for reaching and how they use visual cues.

Main Methods:

  • High-speed video analysis of grasshoppers crossing gaps.
  • Observation of forelimb targeting and body movements.
  • Manipulation of visual cues, including binocular occlusion.

Main Results:

  • Grasshoppers accurately targeted footholds using forelimb reaches without searching movements.
  • They used peering for motion parallax (monocular cue) for distant objects.
  • Binocular cues were used for nearby objects, but peering was adopted when binocular overlap was occluded.
  • Monocular cues sufficed for ipsilateral but not contralateral forelimb targeting.

Conclusions:

  • Grasshoppers perform sensorimotor transformations for visually targeted reaching.
  • They demonstrate flexibility in using different visual cues (monocular and binocular) for reaching.
  • This challenges previous assumptions about sensorimotor capabilities in insects.