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First published online March 31, 2005
Journal of Experimental Biology 208, 1563-1572 (2005)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2005
doi: 10.1242/jeb.01558

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A single control system for smooth and saccade-like pursuit in blowflies

Norbert Boeddeker^* and Martin Egelhaaf

Bielefeld University, Department of Neurobiology, PO Box 10 01 31, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

^* Author for correspondence at present address: Visual Sciences, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University PO Box 475, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia (e-mail: norbert.boeddeker{at}anu.edu.au)

Accepted 23 February 2005

During courtship, male blowflies perform aerobatic pursuits that rank among the fastest visual behaviours that can be observed in nature. The viewing strategies during pursuit behaviour of blowflies appear to be very similar to eye movements during pursuit in primates: a combination of smooth pursuit and catch-up saccades. Whereas in primates these two components of pursuit eye movements are thought to be controlled by distinct oculomotor subsystems, we present evidence that in blowflies both types of pursuit responses can be produced by a single control system. In numerical simulations of chasing behaviour the proposed control system generates qualitatively the same behaviour as with real blowflies. As a consequence of time constants in the control system, mimicking neuronal processing times, muscular dynamics and inertia, saccade-like changes in gaze direction are generated if the target is displaced rapidly on the pursuing fly's retina. In the behavioural context of visual pursuit, saccade-like changes of the fly's gaze direction can thus be parsimoniously explained as an emergent property of a smooth pursuit system without assuming a priori different mechanisms underlying smooth and saccadic tracking behaviour.

Key words: pursuit, control system, visuomotor control, behaviour, computational neuroethology, computer simulation, insect vision, blowfly

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