Eyes rotate torsionally in response to linearly polarized stimuli.
G. smithii rotated their eyes in response to a single polarized light stimulus (Fig. 3a,b). Six wild-caught G. smithii were each shown eight presentations of a short duration (3 s) green LED stimulus (wavelength of maximum emission ¼ 501 nm) with a high percentage of linear polarization (d ¼ 99.5%), seen through a 4 mm aperture in an opaque black screen and the movements of their eyes were tracked using a stereo camera system. The angle of polarization was either vertical (w ¼ 0), or diagonal (w ¼ 45), with four trials of each. Since the two eyes of the stomatopod display a high degree of independenceonly data from the eye that reacted to the stimulus first was used in the analysis