Functional interplay of visual, sensitizing and screening pigments in the eyes of Drosophila and other red-eyed dipteran flies.

ABSTRACT

Several fly species have distinctly red-coloured eyes, meaning that the screening pigments that provide a restricted angular sensitivity of the photoreceptors may perform poorly in the longer wavelength range. The functional reasons for the red transparency and possible negative visual effects of the spectral properties of the eye-colouring screening pigments are discussed within the context of the photochemistry, arrestin binding and turnover of the visual pigments located in the various photoreceptor types. A phylogenetic survey of the spectral properties of the main photoreceptors of the Diptera indicates that the transition of the brown eye colour of the Nematocera and lower Brachycera to a much redder eye colour of the higher Brachycera occurred around the emergence of the Tabanidae family.