Stomotopod color shifts after molt ... how?

[Hwarang]

Good Dr. Caldwell,

You have said that the color shifts we see in our stomatopods are influenced by the light the mantis sees.

(now this may be a a silly question)

Have you researched and documented the actual process by which this happens? Can you definitively say "Light hits the photoreceptor, information is sent to the brain, and the brain begins to send information to the part of the shell developing under the old exoskeleton to start building up pigments X,Y,Z"

or is there a chance it's not a biological process? Is it possible that some part of this is a decision that the stomatopod makes?

Thanks!
-me

 

[Gonodactylus]

We are pretty sure that only the eyes are involved and not some direct response of the cells that lay down the cuticle. Animals without their eyes lose color as do those kept in the dark. ALso, in some species such as P. cilata, pattern as well as color is determined by what the animal sees. How the information is transmitted from the CNS to the cuticle cells is unknown, although I would think that it has to be hormonally mediated.

Roy