The image-forming mirror in the eye of the scallop

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Abstract

Scallops possess a visual system comprising up to 200 eyes, each containing a concave mirror rather than a lens to focus light. The hierarchical organization of the multilayered mirror is controlled for image formation, from the component guanine crystals at the nanoscale to the complex three-dimensional morphology at the millimeter level. The layered structure of the mirror is tuned to reflect the wavelengths of light penetrating the scallop’s habitat and is tiled with a mosaic of square guanine crystals, which reduces optical aberrations. The mirror forms images on a double-layered retina used for separately imaging the peripheral and central fields of view. The tiled, off-axis mirror of the scallop eye bears a striking resemblance to the segmented mirrors of reflecting telescopes.

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Palmer, B. A., Taylor, G. J., Brumfeld, V., Gur, D., Shemesh, M., Elad, N., … Addadi, L. (2017). The image-forming mirror in the eye of the scallop. Science, 358(6367), 1172–1175. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9506

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