Prior to working on insect vision, I spend many years studying the neural pathways underlying motility in the gastrointestinal (GI) system of small laboratory animals and humans. When I changed laboratories in 2017 to begin working with Karin’s team, I thought my days of studying the gut were done. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and discussions of a proposed future project needing some pilot data from the hoverfly gut had me curious, what does the insect GI system actually look like? Up until this point, any dissections I performed for electrophysiology recordings required only the thorax of the hoverfly to be exposed with the abdomen remaining intact. This has meant, that while the esophagus is a familiar sight sitting directly below the ventral nerve cord, I had no idea what the majority of the GI tract looked like in the hoverfly. I was somewhat surprised to find structures reminiscent of what is seen in vertebrates, particularly the structure of the mid and hindgut. Below are some of the pictures taken from this dissection.
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Hoverfly Vision
The hoverfly vision group can be found at 2 locations: At Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and at Uppsala University in Sweden. Archives
January 2022
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