Check Out the 3-D Glasses on this Praying Mantis (Video)

Yes. We've all seen them--at least, one of the 2,400 species in this insect's order. They're praying mantises, and they certainly aren't known for their style, until now. Thanks to Jenny Read of the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, you can spot the world's smallest pair of 3-D specs on some very lucky praying mantises.

Of course, no matter how glamorous or nerdy these insects might look, it's not all just fun and games. The 3-D glasses were created for the praying mantises to watch 3-D movies--all part of a plan to learn more about 3-D vision. In fact, these study results could potentially be used to make future robots, according to researchers.

The praying mantis is the only invertebrate known to have 3-D vision. Thus this insect is key to taking a closer look at three dimensional information when comparing vision between insects and humans.

"Despite their minute brains, mantises are sophisticated visual hunters which can capture prey with terrifying efficiency. We can learn a lot by studying how they perceive the world," Read said, via a press release.

The mantises were fitted with miniscule 5 millimeter glasses using beeswax, in which scientists monitored their behavior in response to computer-generated 3-D images displayed on screen. The glasses work by fooling the insects into misjudging depth, similar to what most might experience at a 3-D movie.

According to The Huffington Post, the spectales are "small enough that they don't get in the mantid's way as it goes about its normal mantid business. As a result, the mantids seem quite happy wearing them and don't try to rub them off."

"This is a really exciting project to be working on. So much is still waiting to be discovered in this system," said Vivek Nityananda of the Newcastle University Institute of Neuroscience, via the release. "If we find that the way mantises process 3D vision is very different to the way humans do it, then that could open up all kinds of possibilities to create much simpler algorithms for programming 3D vision into robots."

Thank Samuel Rossel for discovering the insect's 3D ability in 1983. With the progress of this experiment, researchers hope that further examination of this insect's sight might lead to some revolutionary technology.

What do you think?

Want to learn more about the glasses? Check out this video, courtesy of YouTube.