Eyestalk
Protrusion that extends an eye away from the body
In anatomy, an eyestalk (sometimes spelled eye stalk and also known as an ommatophore) is a protrusion that extends an eye away from the body, giving the eye a better field of view. It is a common feature in nature and frequently appears in fiction.
01In nature
Eyestalks are a specialized type of tentacle. Tentacles may also have olfactory organs at their ends. Examples of creatures with olfactory tentacles include snails, the trilobite superfamily Asaphida, and the fly family Diopsidae. In slugs and snails, these tentacles will regrow if severely damaged, and in some species, are retractable. Crustaceans also have eyestalks, consisting of two segments.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Eyestalk”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Snail-front-0A.jpg by Adamantios, CC BY-SA 3.0
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