A comparison of the eye anatomy of tropical stingless bees

Sammanfattning: Vision is the most important tool for flying insects to control their flight behaviour. It is especially important for tropical stingless bees living in a cluttered environment, for example the rainforest, were there vegetation is dense making it difficult to navigate through. Stingless bees posses apposition compound eyes, and there is still only a little information about how volume of different regions within the eye might affect the visual acuity. In this study the morphological and anatomical difference of six species of tropical stingless bees were compared. Morphological and anatomical variations correlate with behavioural differences and result from natural selection pressure. This study investigated if evolution has selected for different traits and morphological differences to better adapt to the needs of the tropical stingless bees. The results showed that there are some variations between the different species. We found that Melipona Bicolor is a species with a large volume of lenses and photoreceptors indicating that they might be adapted in to having eyes that are capable of sensitive vision with good resolution.