{"id":390494,"date":"2026-04-13T22:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/390494\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T22:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:09:11","slug":"dragonflies-and-humans-share-way-of-seeing-red-new-research-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/390494\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragonflies and Humans Share Way of Seeing Red, New Research Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

A newly-identified visual protein lets dragonflies detect deep red and near-infrared light using a mechanism strikingly similar to that in human eyes, an unexpected case of parallel evolution with potential medical applications, according to new research from Osaka Metropolitan University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Asiagomphus<\/a><\/p>\n

Asiagomphus melaenops female in Miroku forest, Kasugai, Aichi prefecture, Japan. Image credit: Alpsdake \/ CC BY-SA 4.0.<\/p>\n

Humans perceive the colors of light through a protein called opsin in the eye.<\/p>\n

In humans, three types of opsins \u2014 corresponding to blue, green, and red light \u2014 are responsible for color vision.<\/p>\n

Among insects, dragonflies have unusually strong red vision.<\/p>\n

In their new study, Osaka Metropolitan University\u2019s Professor Mitsumasa Koyanagi and colleagues identified a dragonfly opsin that detects light at around 720 nm, which is outside of the deepest red end of our visible spectrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the most red-sensitive visual pigments ever found,\u201d said Osaka Metropolitan University\u2019s Professor Akihisa Terakita.<\/p>\n

\u201cDragonflies can likely see deeper into red light than most insects.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers hypothesized that this would help dragonflies identify suitable mates.<\/p>\n

To test this idea, they measured reflectance, the amount of light a surface reflects. And in dragonflies, this reflected light influences how they appear to each other.<\/p>\n

The scientists found significant differences between male and female Asiagomphus melaenops<\/a> dragonflies in red to near-infrared reflectance, suggesting that detecting these wavelengths helps males quickly distinguish members of the opposite sex during flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurprisingly, the mechanism by which dragonfly red opsin detects red light is identical to that of red opsin in mammals, including humans,\u201d said Osaka Metropolitan University graduate student Ryu Sato.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an unexpected result, suggesting that the same evolutionary process occurred independently in distantly related lineages.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors also revealed an important insight that could help turn this discovery into real-world applications.<\/p>\n

They pinpointed a single key position in the protein that controls its sensitivity to light.<\/p>\n

When they tweaked this, it pushed this sensitivity even further, allowing the protein to respond to light close to the infrared range.<\/p>\n

They engineered a version of the protein that reacts to even longer wavelengths and showed that cells equipped with it can be activated by near-infrared light.<\/p>\n

These findings could be useful in the field of optogenetics, which uses light-sensitive proteins that are activated with light to investigate medical conditions.<\/p>\n

As the dragonfly opsin responds to light with longer wavelengths, it could work better inside deeper tissues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this study, we succeeded in shifting the sensitivity of a modified near-infrared opsin from Gomphidae dragonflies even further toward longer wavelengths and confirmed that the modified near-infrared opsin can induce cellular responses in response to near-infrared light,\u201d Professor Koyanagi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings demonstrate this opsin as a promising optogenetic tool capable of detecting light even deep within living organisms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study<\/a> was published in January 2026 in the journal Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

R. Sato et al. 2026. Dragonfly red opsins share a common tuning mechanism with mammalian red opsins and further enhancement of near-infrared sensitivity. Cell. Mol. Life Sci 83, 66; doi: 10.1007\/s00018-025-06017-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A newly-identified visual protein lets dragonflies detect deep red and near-infrared light using a mechanism strikingly similar to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[185962,185963,185964,98254,5351,27351,185965,10972,85,11208,35963,46,18050,185966,185967,5198,141,21128],"class_list":{"0":"post-390494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-asiagomphus","9":"tag-asiagomphus-melaenops","10":"tag-color-vision","11":"tag-dragonfly","12":"tag-evolution","13":"tag-eye","14":"tag-gomphidae","15":"tag-human","16":"tag-il","17":"tag-insect","18":"tag-ir","19":"tag-israel","20":"tag-mammal","21":"tag-opsin","22":"tag-parallel-evolution","23":"tag-protein","24":"tag-science","25":"tag-vision"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}