Thomas Daniel, University of Washington

A Tale of Two (or Three?) Gyroscopes: Inertial measurement units (IMUs) in flying insects

Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM
Place: 2040 Valley Life Sciences Building
Format: IB Seminar
Sponsors: Mimi Koehl & Robert Full

Animals use a combination of sensory modalities to control their movement including visual, mechanosensory and chemosensory information. Mechanosensory systems that can detect inertial forces are capable of responding much more rapidly than visual systems and, as such, are thought to play a critical role in rapid course correction during flight. This talk focusses on two gryoscopic organs: halteres of flies and antennae of moths. Both have mechanical and neural components play critical roles in encoding relatively tiny Coriolis forces associated with body rotations, both of which will be reviewed along with new data that suggests each have complex circuits that connect visual systems to mechanosensory systems. But, insects are bristling with mechanosensory structures, including the wings themselves. It is not clear whether these too could serve an IMU function in addition to their obvious aerodynamic roles.