Superposition eye

A superposition eye is a compound eye in which the individual ommatidia are not shielded from one another over their entire length.

It mainly occurs in nocturnal insects such as the moths . The main difference to the apposition eye is that the retinula does not lie directly on the crystal cone of the eye and the middle sections are not isolated by pigment cells . Because of the only partial isolation by pigment cells, the images that enter through neighboring dioptric devices can be mapped onto the retinula of an ommatidium - this leads to overlapping. This allows the animals to see something even at lower light intensity, but at the expense of visual acuity. At higher light intensity, the pigment cells can shift, which functionally creates an apposition eye again. A distinction is made between optical superposition eyes and neural superposition eyes .