Tiling mechanisms of the Drosophila compound eye through geometrical tessellation

What determines the shape of flies’ eyes

30 September 2022

The controlling factor that determines whether flies develop compound eyes with square or hexagonal elements has been determined.

Tiling patterns in which the same shape is repeated without gaps are common in nature. A typical example is the compound eyes of insects and other animals. In the vast majority of cases, the individual eyes that make up the compound eyes are hexagonal in shape, but some instances of square eye elements are known. This preference for hexagonal tiling was thought to be due to the superior mechanical stability it confers.

Now, a team led by researchers from Kanazawa University in Japan has shown that geometric tessellation is the key factor for determining whether hexagonal or square tiling occurs in compound eyes.

The team found this by comparing the compound eyes of normal flies that had hexagonal tiling with those of mutants that had square tiling.

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References

1. Current Biology 32, 2101–2109 (2022). doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.046