Mantis Shrimp Lab Report

Jasmine C. Brown
29 March 2017
Dr. Runia and Dr. Martinat
Adaptive Essay
The Amazing Mighty Mantis Shrimp
To be a biologist, one needs to understand biology, but to be a good biologist one should know how to convey it to the interested layman. To describe Stomatopods, I shall attempt to be a good biologist and go into detail about its morphology (how it looks) and some of the adaptations that help them survive their environment. The Mantis Shrimp’s scientific name is Odontodactylus scyllarus. This creature is in the Malacostraca class, this is latin for soft shell (even though it is normally hard). More familiar animals in this group are lobsters, crabs, and crawfish. The Peacock Mantis Shrimp typically tends to be the length and width of
With merely two photoreceptors of rods and cones, the human eye seems unimpressive. Photoreceptors are cells that can be found in the back of the eye’s retina. These specialized cells serve to distinguish shade, contrast, man’s ability to see color, and the perception of depth. The arrangment of the rods and cones are arranged is specific. Rods lie mainly in the periphery, while the cones are bundled into the middle. This is the part of the eye that gives the most accurate vision. The high density of cones in the eye gives humans the ability to focus on an object in the center of our vision. Even with all that the eye has, how come humans can’t see UV or infrared light? Would it not have been useful to the less evolved man? The answer natural selection has left us with is probably not. Our poor sense of vision compared to other mammals (and animals in general) would not have aided the early hominid. The spectrum that is considered visible light ( 0.3 to 0.8 μm) has the highest energy on the surface of the earth according to the solar light spectrum. In turn, the gross location of the visible light spectrum on a could be used to explain the various frequency-specific ranges that species have. It could also explain how these ranges become a survival trait making it more likely to be selected for. Keep in mind, that it would make the most sense for eyes to work at the frequency most represented or displayed in sunlight. This being the case, it could be said that humans simply did not need that range of vision. According to a hypothesis by Osorio and Vorobyev, the range human vision has been correlated to “foraging behaviors due to particularly sensitive visual systems” and allowing our ancestors to see “the frequency range of ripe fruit”. This could be thought as a great benefit. However, this does not explain the reason for other animals capabilities to see UV. Some birds can identify