Why do horseflies need polarization vision for host detection? Polarization helps tabanid flies to select sunlit dark host animals from the dark patches of the visual environment

Horseflies (Tabanidae) are polarotactic, being attracted to linearly polarized light when searching for water or host animals. Although it is well known that horseflies prefer sunlit dark and strongly polarizing hosts, the reason for this preference is unknown. According to our hypothesis, horseflie...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gábor Horváth, Tamás Szörényi, Ádám Pereszlényi, Balázs Gerics, Ramón Hegedüs, András Barta, Susanne Åkesson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: The Royal Society 2017-01-01
Series:Royal Society Open Science
Subjects:
Online Access:https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170735