Tanner Mierow confesses to have “a passion for understanding weird eyes,” especially those belonging to insects and other invertebrate creatures. During much of the summer of 2025, Mierow, a doctoral student in biological science at The University of Tulsa, immersed himself in this fascinating field thanks to an internship with The Nature Inspired Research Facility (NIRF). Located at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, The NIRF is part of the Air Force Research Laboratory, and Mierow’s internship was funded by the Universities Space Research Association.
The NIRF group he was part of has spent several years investigating advanced capability sensors for improved guidance and control of flying vehicles by focusing on animal sensing. Mierow’s main activity was using an electroretinography (ERG) rig to conduct electrophysiology recordings. “In plain English,” he explained, “this entails inserting an electrode into an insect’s nervous system, delivering stimuli and recording the electrical activity that results at the insertion site.”
One of only five NIRF interns, Mierow – a 2025 recipient of UTulsa’s Distinguished Graduate Student Award – conducted experiments on light stimuli. This included light of different wavelengths (i.e., colors) and intensities (dim to bright) and flickering light at various frequencies (slow and fast). “The point of these efforts was to gather data on how the eye – a biological sensor – physiologically responds to these stimuli,” he said. “The results are enabling us to refine our understanding of the colors an insect can perceive, at what light levels it can see and how fast its eyes sample or refresh the scene it’s looking at.”
While the details and applications of the research being carried out at The NIRF is classified, Mierow points out that the work has an array of implications for military and civilian applications. “We need technology sensors that can sample visual scenes at high rates and have precise visual resolution, or at least decent resolution in both air and water,” he noted. “And so why would we start from scratch to develop these when nature already has sensors – eyes – that can accomplish such amazing feats?” Once that knowledge exists, the next step is reverse engineering for advanced human technologies.
Eyeballing survival
As a NIRF intern, Mierow also was able to further his own doctoral research on the eyes of giant water bugs, an amphibious insect commonly known as a toe-biter. “When we humans open our eyes under water, our vision is blurry. But as giant water bugs transition from the nymph (juvenile) to adult stage, their eyes transform so they can see equally well on land and in the water. It’s a matter of their survival,” he noted.
“Tanner’s interest in toe-biters has been an interesting novel system for us,” said Martin F. Wehling, a physicist with The NIRF. “Our focus has been on animals like flies and beetles, with some interest in marine systems, such as stomatopods. Toe-biters, however, function in both environments, so seeing what Tanner discovers will open new areas to explore in Nature’s laboratory.”
Mierow points out that scientists already know optically and morphologically giant water bugs achieve amphibious vision. His interest lies, meanwhile, in discovering the physiological processes: How their eyes adapt to having to see in both air and water.
To further this quest, upon returning to UTulsa, Mierow constructed an ERG rig in the lab of his Ph.D. adviser, Assistant Professor of Biological Science Alexandra Kingston. This enables him to carry out more electrophysiology recordings, data that is increasing understanding of insects’ biological sensors.
“Tanner is a creative, collaborative and exceptionally hard-working scientist,” Kingston commented. “His research builds on foundational knowledge using innovative and integrative approaches to understand how animals’ visual systems drive their interactions with each other and their environments.”
One critical finding so far is that while giant water bugs have relatively fast vision, their eyes are sensitive to a broad range of light intensities that span more than four log units of intensity. This aspect accords with having to carry out visually guided behaviors during both day and night. “I have also learned their eyes can respond to ultraviolet light, which human eyes cannot do, and blue-green colors of light,” Mierow reported. In addition, of particular interest for his project has been the discovery that giant water bugs’ brains are located at the very back of the head and continue into the junction with the thorax.
Based on these findings, Mierow is putting the final touches on a paper he plans to submit for publication: “The overall point of this article is to describe how giant water bugs use vision in their general ecology and illuminate some of the physiological adaptations associated with amphibious vision.”
When he is not busy unravelling the mysteries of insect vision, Mierow can be found either lost in fantasy and science fiction novels, reading about the latest biology breakthroughs, or training hard for his next half-marathon. Although sometimes he takes a break and simply enjoys time walking around downtown Tulsa and hanging out at a favorite coffee shop with his Australian shepherd, Archie.
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