Com'c #212

What's that? You're going to vote every...? *freezes with a grin*

Commentary Transcript

Is it obvious enough yet that Garry is not meant to be likeable?

I want to clarify: I mean no offense towards people with genuine obsessions (or towards anyone, really, except maybe those who act like Garry). It's (as I understand it) a sometimes severe psychological condition that you can't control, and I respect that. As much as this is a comedy comic, I do not (normally) intend to make fun of Iris or her obsession, but rather the situations it leads to and the contrast with her apathy.

With that out of the way - on to dragonfly biology!

For someone who currently works as a scientist, Garry sure doesn't care about accuracy and technicalities. This can be seen with his use of "ass", "swim" and "farting" in #157 (That's already a quarter of the comic's run ago. Where the heck is the time going?), but also here with his reference to 30,000 eyes. Dragonflies actually have only two eyes, but those eyes are also some of the biggest compound eyes among insects and consist of about thirty thousand ommatidia, which are (to my understanding) advanced static light receptors. The main difference in function is that where we humans move our eyes around in their sockets to look somewhere, dragonflies can't move their eyes, but see in all directions simultaneously - even behind themselves, though their back vision has a much lower resolution than their front and side vision.

The "sky compass" refers to polarization of light. Dragonflies and a number of other insects with compound eyes can see it naturally, while we can only see it while wearing sunglasses. It's unknown if dragonflies do it, but several other insect species have been observed to use it for navigation.