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Scientists Give Praying Mantises Tiny 3D Glasses
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at Newcastle University are outfitting praying mantises with tiny 3D glasses in order to study how their vision works. From the article: 'Praying mantises have stereoscopic vision, unlike most invertebrates. This makes them sophisticated hunters, and ideal subjects for a team from Newcastle University led by vision scientist Jenny Read. By putting 3-D glasses on the mantises and faking them out, Reid and her colleagues want to learn how the insect's vision differs from ours.""
By the way: "stereoscopic" vision is hardly unusual in arthropods. Most crabs and shrimp have it. Hunting spiders often have it (not even just "stereo"... more like surround sound). And so on. I am pretty sure a lot of flies can see forward in stereo.
Perhaps they are making some distinction between stereoscopic and binocular vision. A multi-eye configuration isn't necessarily binocular, even if the eye clusters are separated into two spaces. The eyes are well spread for their size, but they don't move and focus the same, so they may not image the same.
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