Pittcon Conference 2008

Middleton Research and the Florida Institute of Technologyare presenting "Mid-Infrared Transmission Characteristics of the Crotalus Adamanteus Infrared Image Sensor Pit Organ Using Infrared Microscopy"

Abstract: Snake infrared imaging systems are extraordinarily sensitive, providing greater absolute sensitivity than sophisticated man-made detection devices, without supplemental cooling [1,2]. The infrared sensing is known to occur in the mid-infrared region, where all the radiation is completely absorbed due to water content of most tissues. It is therefore important to understand the optical properties of the pit organ epidermis that allows infrared photons to interact with neural receptors located just beneath the epidermal surface. Spectral investigation of the very small (a few millimeters in diameter) pit organs is facilitated by the use of mid-infrared microspectroscopy tools capable of targeting and focusing electromagnetic radiation onto a well-defined small area.

Shed epidermal samples from the pit viper Crotalus adamanteus (eastern diamondback rattlesnake) were positioned and measured using a Pike Technologies µMAX sample compartment mounted infrared microscope. Spectra of dorsal interscale and speculum epidermis were compared to prove the unique infrared functionality of the pit organ. Different snakes, both ones with proven infrared imaging organs and ones that were believed to have infrared sensing, were compared as well.

[1] Newman EA, Hartline PH. 1982. The infrared "vision" of snakes. Sci Am 246: 98-107.
[2] Grace MS, Woodward OM, Church DR, Calisch G. 2001. Prey targeting by the infrared-imaging snake Python: effects of experimental and congenital visual deprivation. Behav Brain Res 119:23-31.

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