Adults exhibit almost normal eyes when reared at 18oC with very occasional eye defects including misplaced bristles, a lens defect or missing R7 cells. At 29oC the eyes are severely disrupted exhibiting lens defects and bristle duplications. Apical ommatidia contain between 4 and 8 photoreceptors while basal ommatidia have between 4 and 15 photoreceptors. Pigment cells surrounding each ommatidium are greatly reduced in size.
De novo expression in cells can cause cell death within 7 hours, a temperature shift of as short as 4 hours can severely disrupt cell function.