Flash Artefact or Real?

Chris Pickford · Post by **Chris Pickford** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:49 pm

Looking at close up images of a Small Elephant Hawk that came visiting last night, I notice that the eye appears to have a central dark area, rather like our eyes and not like the usual insect compound eyes. Does anyone know if this is real (why?) or an artefact caused by the flash??

Dave McCormick · Post by **Dave McCormick** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 2:00 pm

Seems real. Here is the eye of an Elephent hawk moth to show you:

This was taken with a flash and (you can't see it so well in this) I noticed that these hawk moths have the central spot on their eye too. Maybe they have better eyesight than a lot of other leps?