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Animals With Great Eyesight

Eyesight is an important way of perceiving the environment. Many predators rely on strong vision to detect prey that is far away or well hidden. Other animals that would be prey may survive because their visual skills warn them of an attack. How well an animal can see may determine whether it gets a meal, or becomes one.

Raptors
- Eagles and other birds of prey are well known for their astounding vision. These raptors can see small prey such as rabbits from over half a mile away. Because of the position of their eyes, eagles have both binocular and monocular vision, allowing them to see forward and to both sides simultaneously as they scan the ground for movement.
Owls
- Owls have an advantage over other birds of prey. Their eyes are adapted to see at night, when most birds and other animals can see only poorly. Owls have a layer in the back of their eyes called the tapetum lucidum, which reflects light back through the retina, enabling them to see better in darkness. Combined with their large pupils, this allows owls to see small animals over large areas with only the smallest sources of light.
Cats
- Cats also have excellent nighttime vision, which enables them to hunt at night. Like owls, they have a tapetum lucidum in the back of their eyes to increase their sensitivity to light. (Humans do not have a tapetum lucidum.) The irises of cats can contract to a narrow slit in the daytime, and expand to a circle at night in order to regulate the amount of light that enters the eye, further enabling them to see prey in the dark.
Underwater Animals
- Vision can also be important underwater. Sharks can detect light that is much dimmer than anything humans can see. On a smaller scale, goldfish have full-spectrum vision that enables them to see flashes of static electric charge, warning them if there is a predator nearby using sonar capabilities. The eyes of the goldfish can also detect the wave effects of any fast-moving predator in the water.
Mantis Shrimp
- Another animal that lives underwater may have the best visual capabilities of all. The mantis shrimp has 16 types of photoreceptors in its eyes, and it can detect 100,000 different colors. In comparison, humans have four types of photoreceptors and can see about 10,000 colors. What really makes the mantis shrimp unique is that it is the only creature that can see circular polarized light.

Animals & Science