The jumping spider has a special vision system
that enables it to calculate the precise distance it needs to jump. How
does the spider do it?
Consider: To measure its distance
from an object, the jumping spider exploits a unique feature of its two
principal eyes, each of which has a “staircase” retina with multiple
layers. While one layer receives green light in sharp focus, another
receives it as a blurry image. The more out of focus an image appears in
that layer, the closer the object is to the spider’s eye. This simple
fact enables the spider to calculate the exact distance it has to jump
to catch its prey.
Researchers would like to copy the jumping
spider’s technique in order to create 3-D cameras and even robots that
can measure the distance to an object. According to the online news site
ScienceNOW, the jumping spider’s vision provides “an exciting example
of how half-centimeter-long [0.2 in.] animals with brains smaller than
those of house flies still manage to gather and act on complex visual
information.”
There are truly many things we can learn from nature. Look around you, is nature not amazing?
