Evolution of Peripheral Visual System in the Apoidea: A Role for Food Item Mobility?

r-wasps. The observed variations were largely dependent on head width, with the eye enlargement being faster in wasps than in bees as the head size increased. Phylogenetically-corrected models highlighted a strong effect of common ancestry on morphological variation but confirmed the significant effect of food mobility for the relative eye size. Ancestral state reconstructions suggested a shift to relatively smaller eyes in correspondence with the shift to pollen provisioning, while things seemed to be more complex with the relative ocellar size, likely because of the negative allometry of this trait, especially strong in bees. We may conclude that the need to hunt rapidly moving prey in flight has likely contributed to the evolution of the visual system in Apoidea.