Owned oyster Saint-Jacques 'special telescope'

Grilled Saint-Jacques shellfish is one of the indispensable dishes in the Christmas season in France.

However, not everyone knows this species possesses a sophisticated visual system that can have up to 200 eyes of 1mm size. This visual system functions as a type of telescope.

According to the Weizmann Institute of Science study in Israel recently published in the journal Science, Saint-Jacques shellfish as well as some species living deep in the seabed have a mirror system to create mirror images from the light. Bright and programmed to receive light waves that penetrate into the waters where they live.

Scallop Saint-Jacques.

These mirrors are made of extremely small numbers of complex 3-dimensional shapes that minimize light aberration and produce clear images.

These mirrors produce images on a double-layer retina from individual images that the shellfish sees in the scope of observation and marginality.

That structure helps Saint-Jacques oysters have a vision of about 250 degrees compared to the 180 degrees of the human eye.

Scientists also consider that the eyes of this oyster also have a concave sphere mirror to reflect light.

This is an interesting discovery because 'the mirror system is made up of many cubes in this multitude of soft-bodied eyes that are amazingly similar to the segmented mirrors in reflective telescopes " .

The findings of Israeli scientists are expected to pave the way for the creation of new optical instruments, as well as new applications for image processing or sensors.