Nature Inspires Innovations

Living organisms are found everywhere on this planet earth. The variety of life on Earth is commonly referred to as biodiversity. The number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species, the different ecosystems on this planet, such as deserts, rain forests and coral reefs are all part of biodiversity.

Each species in this planet earth has a role to play. Living organisms do not exist in 

isolation.  They depend on each other for their survival. For example honey bees depend 

on  flowers for their food. In turn flowers depend on honey bees for their propagation. This 

helps both the  species survive in their ecosystems.

Man depends on plants, trees, insects and his other counterparts for his survival. They also depend on man for their survival. The reason for the existence of this planet earth is inter dependency of all the members of the bio diversity.

Man is superior to all the other species of life because man has not only conquered them but also learnt from them to better his life. He has learnt to advance in technology and science because he has drawn inspiration to innovate from other species of life. For example, he could invent air planes to fighter aircrafts by studying the flight of birds.

Man’s needs are ever increasing. Man has to live a quality life. It is also necessary to lead a comfortable life without harming the ecosystem. Man should develop sustainable technology to enrich his living style on this planet. So he has to keep on learning, investigating and understanding the Mother Nature and its biodiversity.

One such member of the biodiversity is the insect and its wonderful compound eyes. Compound eyes of the insects are the wonderful creation of nature. Compound eyes have many lenses for each eye. For example, the fly has about 4,000 lenses in a single eye.

Insects are the largest group of arthropods. They are very adaptable and are  living almost everywhere in the world. There are over 800,000 different types of insects. Common insects include the fly, beetle, butterfly, moth, dragonfly, bees etc.

Compound eyes are made up of clusters of photo receptor units, called ommatidia. Each ommatidium consists of:

• A lens and a transparent crystalline cone that reflects and focuses light.
• Light-sensitive visual cells arranged in a radial pattern like the sections of an orange.
• Pigment cells, ensures that light is entering the ommatidium parallel   and reaches the visual cells and triggers nerve impulses.
• Pigment cells and visual cells within the ommatidium detect light levels and color.
• The pigment connected to nerve fibers lead to the optic nerve, transmits impulses to the visual processing area of the brain.

The compound eyes have the following salient features:

• The more ommatidia a compound eye has, the greater the resolution and  each ommatidium functions separately,
• There may be thousands of ommatidia in a compound eye.
• The compound eye is so structured that each ommatidium is pointed slightly in different directions. This allows for a wider view..
• Each ommitidium will transmit information from just one small area within that field.
• The brain will then assemble the impulses from all of the ommatidia to form a composite image of its surroundings.
• The compound eyes of insects allow them to have panoramic vision because the individual ommatidia provide fragments of an image that are then simultaneously combined to rapidly build up a larger overall picture.

• Compound eyes produce images that are a mosaic composed of many dots.
• When an object moves across a compound eye's field of vision, the ommatidia are turned off or on, producing a flicker effect.
• Some compound eyes have ommatidia that contain two or more pigments. Species with that kind of compound eye have some color vision.
• Some compound eyes have pigments that can detect ultraviolet light also.

Insects have a wide field of view and are acutely sensitive to motion. Their eyes are the storehouse of information and technology. Learning the structure and the function of these compound eyes are very important to advance ourselves in technology and its applications. Since man is inquisitive in nature he can develop lenses like compound eyes of insects and load it on a comfortable camera to take wide angle photographs for the following purposes like,

• Surveillance systems in unmanned flying vehicles or spy satellites.
• Earth satellites for detecting natural resources like minerals, oil etc.
• In endoscopes to give a clear picture about our internal organs so that pin hole surgeries can be performed by doctors very effectively.
• Many other technological applications can be thought of to make use of these lenses to better the lives of mankind.

Learning from nature and innovating technology is not new to man. Man is the only investigating animal on this earth. That is why man is superior to all the other members of this bio diversity. It is necessary to develop future technological applications that are sustainable.  

The uniqueness of our planet is inter dependency of species for mutual survival. The earth, its biodiversity can survive only if the individual species survive.  So, we have to understand the behavior, anatomy and the study the life style of insects and try to incorporate them in developing innovative technologies to benefit mankind. Always remember nature inspires inventions and innovations.

Study Nature. Love Nature. Stay close to Nature. It will reward you.