All About Butterfly Eyes

By Alisa T.
Illustration by Leslie F.


Did you know that the Monarch Butterfly doesn't just have two big eyes? They have thousands of eyes. Each large eye is called a compound eye and they're made up of tiny eyes called Omatidia. Each eye sees straight ahead. It sees lots of little objects at once. Each eye makes a small picture. Then the butterfly's brain puts all the pictures together. Each tiny ommatidium has a clear surface which lets in light. I think that it is amazing that they have so many eyes.

I got my information from a book called INSECTS.






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Created: May 1997
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