Ah! So the same as the rest of their hard parts, I suppose. I suspected as much, but couldn’t seem to find any paper that explicitly stated this.
Thank you!
Ah! So the same as the rest of their hard parts, I suppose. I suspected as much, but couldn’t seem to find any paper that explicitly stated this.
Thank you!
NegativeInf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
From my searching, it would seem that trilobites used calcite to reinforce their hard parts as well. Crustaceans have amorphous calcium carbonate reinforced exoskeletons through mineralization, but no calcite land arthropods do not seem to have this mineralization tho.
I’m no expert. Just like using Google Scholar to answer questions I find interesting.
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
NegativeInf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Seems to be easier focusing with the calcite as well as durability in the scratchy sand environment.
Additionally, more derived/later species had aspherical lenses to compensate for the spherical aberration and dual layer organic→calcite lenses to allow for more of a refractive gradient to counteract the double imaging of calcite alone.
Modern arthropods probably done use it on land because of an inability to accumulate it in an efficient manner. Water arthropods like crustaceans probably done because it’s metabolically expensive to do these things when chitin alone can make for useful eyes.
Evolution is more of a “good enough” kinda situation.