What the Heck Is That? Ordinary Things That Look Insane Microscopic!

Fruit Fly Eyes or Built-in Disco Balls?

Zoom in on a fruit fly’s eye, and all you’ll see is a sparkling, red-tinted dome covered in perfect hexagons. That’s because each eye is made up of around 800 ommatidia—tiny individual lenses that all work together like a high-speed surveillance team.

These little units give the fly super-fast vision, perfect for dodging swats and zipping around the kitchen. The surface almost mimics a honeycomb but is way more high-tech. Each lens has its own light-sensing cells, so the fly sees a mosaic of the world instead of one smooth image. It’s less like a camera and more like a pixelated action movie.

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