From Bees’ surface following to Lunar landing

To better grasp the visuomotor control system underlying insects’ height and speed control (Srinivasan et al. 1996, Portelli et al. 2010a), we attempted to interfere with this system by producing a major perturbation on the free flying insect and observing the effect of this perturbation. Honeybees were trained to fly along a high-roofed tunnel, part of which was equipped with a moving floor. The bees followed the stationary part of the floor at a given height. On encountering the moving part of the floor, which moved in the same direction as their flight, honeybees descended and flew at a lower height (See Fig. 1 E-F). In so doing, bees gradually restored their ventral optic flow (OF) to a similar optic flow value to that they had perceived when flying over the stationary part of the floor. OF restoration therefore relied on lowering the groundheight rather than increasing the groundspeed (Portelli, Ruffier, Franceschini 2010b).