The sophisticated visual system of a tiny Cambrian crustacean: analysis of a stalked fossil compound eye.

Fossilized compound eyes from the Cambrian, isolated and three-dimensionally preserved, provide remarkable insights into the lifestyle and habitat of their owners. The tiny stalked compound eyes described here probably possessed too few facets to form a proper image, but they represent a sophisticated system for detecting moving objects. The eyes are preserved as almost solid, mace-shaped blocks of phosphate, in which the original positions of the rhabdoms in one specimen are retained as deep cavities.

Autofluorescence imaging, an excellent tool for comparative morphology.

Here we present a set of methods for documenting (exo-)morphology by applying autofluorescence imaging. For arthropods, but also for other taxa, autofluorescence imaging combined with composite imaging is a fast documentation method with high-resolution capacities. Compared to conventional micro- and macrophotography, the illumination is much more homogenous, and structures are often better contrasted.