Definission: Drag swimmers use a cyclic motion where they push water back in a power stroke, and return their limb forward in the return or recovery stroke. When they push water directly backwards, this moves their body forward, but as they return their limbs to the starting position, they push water forward, which will thus pull them back to some degree, and so opposes the direction that the body is heading. This opposing force is called drag. The return-stroke drag causes drag swimmers to employ different strategies than lift swimmers. Reducing drag on the return stroke is essential for optimizing efficiency.
Definission: Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris, France. URL for main institutional website: http://www.mnhn.fr/museum/foffice/science/science/sommaire.xsp
Definission: A compound eye with no separation between the crystalline-cone layer and the retinula, each rhabdom receiving light only from its own corneal lens.
Definission: A compound eye with no separation between the crystalline-cone layer and the retinula, each rhabdom receiving light only from its own corneal lens.
Definission: superposition compound eyes where each ommatidium is equipped with a set of plane mirrors, aligned at right angles, forming a square. Rays entering the eye at an oblique angle encounter two surfaces of each mirror box rather than one surface. In this case, the pair of mirrors at right angles acts as a corner reflector. Corner reflectors reflect an incoming ray through 180 degrees, irrespective of the ray’s original direction. This ensures that all parallel rays reach the same focal point and means that the eye as a whole has no single axis, which allows the eye to operate over a wide angle.
