Close-up shots of spider eyes captured by Spanish macro photographer Javier Rupérez
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Close-up shots of spider eyes captured by Spanish macro photographer Javier Rupérez
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Deborah Hartmann Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦replied to Rusty Bertrand last edited by
@RustyBertrand @inthehands am I right in thinking that what look like "pupils" are actually just reflections?
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Rusty Bertrandreplied to Deborah Hartmann Preuss last edited by
@deborahh @inthehands
Lower right. Doesn’t look like it. Idk -
Deborah Hartmann Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦replied to Rusty Bertrand last edited by
@RustyBertrand @inthehands ok, looked it up. Wow!
"Several families of hunting spiders, such as jumping spiders and wolf spiders, have fair to excellent vision. The main pair of eyes in jumping spiders even sees in colour."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_vision"Spider eyes are different from insect eyes; they are not compound but simple. There is one lens for each eye, made of a thin layer of the cuticle. Below that is the retina, the actual light-detecting cells."
https://www.wired.com/2014/04/spider-vision-made-clear/ -
Deborah Hartmann Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦replied to Deborah Hartmann Preuss last edited by
@RustyBertrand @inthehands … I mean, check out the drawings in the linked Wired article!
I expected compound eyes, like insects, but those are eyes … with adjustable dual lenses, in some cases, like a frickin' zoom lens! 🤯
I'm having trouble processing that spiders may have better eyes than I do. (Can't help but think of that recent SciFi novel where a planet's apex predators are large, sentient spider descendants. I could not finish that book, though it was well written. #shudder)
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Nobody باچیز नास्ति (he/him)replied to Deborah Hartmann Preuss last edited by
@deborahh @RustyBertrand @inthehands
Can you name drop the novel?
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Deborah Hartmann Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦replied to Nobody باچیز नास्ति (he/him) last edited by
@tadbithuman @RustyBertrand @inthehands wait, is sentient the right word? Today's spiders are sentient, right? What word do I want here? In the book, they think and plan and feel emotions in ways that seem human.
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Rusty Bertrandreplied to Deborah Hartmann Preuss last edited by
@deborahh
Yes. Sentient. Personally, I believe everything with a nervous system is sentient. Humans just have ego added. A delusion of godhood, control and dominance.
@tadbithuman @inthehands -
@RustyBertrand @deborahh @tadbithuman
I’m increasingly of a mind that “sentience” and “intelligence” are so ill-defined as to be useless, at least when posited as ideas with a boundary condition.Instead of “Is this organism sentient / intelligent?,” the more productive question is “•How• is this organism sentient / intelligent?”
cf The Hidden Life of Trees