Red receptors dominate the proximal tier of the retina in the butterfly Papilio xuthus

1.The ommatidia of the butterfly Papilio have a fused and tiered rhabdom. The distal tier of the rhabdom is made up of four distal photoreceptors (R1–4), whereas the proximal tier is made up of four proximal (R5–8) and one basal photoreceptor cell (R9).2.We first confirmed by light microscopy that the ommatidia of Papilio are not twisted, i.e. have the same spatial organization all about the longitudinal axis. The polarization method, previously applied to the distal tier, hence is applicable to identify the photoreceptor location from the peak angle of the polarization sensitivity.3.We determined the polarization and spectral sensitivity of in total 109 proximal and basal photoreceptors in the lateral looking eye region. All of the photoreceptors were either green or red type, most of which fall into three classes as judged by the peak angles of the polarization sensitivity: around 40°, 150°, and 180° (= 0°) with respect to the dorso-ventral axis. The first two classes are formed by the proximal photoreceptors with straight microvilli oriented at the average angle of 39° (R6, 8) and 144° (R5, 7) respectively, and the third is formed by the basal photoreceptors R9 with straight microvilli oriented at 180° (= 0°). The mean polarization sensitivity (PS = maximal sensitivity/minimal sensitivity) was about 2.4.75% of the proximal and 48% of the basal photoreceptors were of the red type.5.A single ommatidium of Papilio appears to contain two to four types of spectral receptors