此前研究表明，昆虫大多靠触角等器官凭“感觉”行走或飞行，依靠视觉引导行走对于脑部较小的昆虫来说似乎过于高级。一项新研究发现，蝗虫并不是靠“感觉”走路，而是依靠“视觉”精确定位自己的每一步，这表明人类可能低估了蝗虫的视觉导向系统。

英国剑桥大学的研究人员在《现代生物学》杂志上发表论文说，他们做了一系列实验，让蝗虫爬梯子，并用高速摄像机拍摄，结果捕捉到蝗虫的每一次绊倒和失足情况。他们还观察了涂黑蝗虫一只眼、去除它们触角或前腿传感器、拆掉梯子中间一根横档后蝗虫的走路方式。

观察表明，蝗虫通过视觉引导行走的方式与人类类似，不过在形式上要简单一些。尼文说，这说明蝗虫也具有一定水平的大脑视觉处理能力。

研究结果还表明，与人类两眼并用的视觉能力相比，蝗虫仅能依靠单眼视觉来控制与该眼同侧的腿部运动。蝗虫在提腿前就确定好了落脚的位置，这一点也与人类不同，如果中途发生意外，它们就会失足踩空，而人类在迈出脚步时会防备意外的危险，并在必要时作出调整。

研究人员指出，这项研究揭示了昆虫是如何利用较少的神经细胞、很可能是较为简单的机制，来实现类似于人类或猫这样的脊椎动物的行走能力。

原始出处：

Current Biology, 24 December 2009 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.10.079

Visual Targeting of Forelimbs in Ladder-Walking Locusts

Jeremy E. Niven1, 2, ,  , Christian J. Buckingham1, Sheila Lumley1, Matthew F. Cuttle3 and Simon B. Laughlin1

1 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK
2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado Postal 0843-03092, Panamá, República de Panamá
3 School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Bassett Crescent East, Southampton SO16 7PX, UK

Accurate limb placement helps animals and robots to walk on substrates that are uneven or contain gaps. Visual information is important in controlling limb placement in walking mammals [1–4,1–4,1–4,1–4] but has received little attention in insects [5–7,5–7,5–7]. We investigated whether desert locusts walking along a horizontal ladder use vision to control limb placement. High-speed video analysis showed that locusts targeted their front legs to specific rungs in the absence of any previous contact, suggesting that visual information alone is sufficient for targeting single steps. Comparison between the proportions of missed steps before and after monocular occlusion showed that monocular visual information was used to place the ipsilateral but not the contralateral front leg. Accurate placement also depended upon mechanosensory inputs from the antennae and proprioceptive feedback from the ipsilateral but not the contralateral forelimb. Locusts also compensated for the loss of inputs to one eye by altering their stepping pattern. Changing the rung position after initiation of a step showed that targeting of the front leg depends on visual information acquired before but not during a step. The trajectory was only modified after missing the rung. Our data show that locusts walking in environments where footholds are limited use visual and mechanosensory information to place their front legs.