How does a dragonfly see the world?

What the research shows

The claim about opsin diversity comes from genetics rather than behaviour. Futahashi et al. (2015) surveyed visual opsin genes across dragonflies and found between 15 and 33 of them, with long-wavelength types forming the largest group in families such as the Libellulidae. A gene count shows what an eye can build, not how many distinct colour channels the animal actually uses. The photoreceptor data add a regional layout: sensitivity spans ultraviolet near 350 nm through blue near 440 and green near 520 nm to red, but the dorsal part of the eye is biased toward ultraviolet and blue, roughly 300–500 nm, suited to spotting prey against the sky, while the ventral part covers about 300–700 nm for detecting prey and other dragonflies.

The headline speed and detail figures are estimates. Acuity in the dorsal acute zone is put at about 1 to 2 cycles per degree, and the simulation uses 1.5 cpd. Flicker fusion is estimated at roughly 200 to 300 Hz; the page shows the upper value, 300 Hz, which should be read as an estimate rather than a measurement. Temporal resolution is exactly what a screen cannot convey, because a display refreshes at a fixed rate and cannot present change faster than that, and ultraviolet and polarization sensitivity have no counterpart among its three primaries.