Wild Vision

Let’s talk about they way animals see the world around them! 

There are so many different types of vision for people—you can have perfect 20/20 vision, astigmatism, nearsightedness, farsightedness, blindness, colorblindness, and so much more. The way that humans see with all the rods and cones in our eyes makes us fascinating. If you can believe it, the animal kingdom is full of creatures who have even wilder vision than us!  

Rectangular Pupils: Goats, Sheep Horses, Deer, and Cattle all have rectangular-shaped pupils (the black part of your eye). Why? It’s to give them the ability to see around themselves without having to turn their heads. Their rectangular eyes give them 340 degrees of peripheral vision (what you can see around you when staring straight ahead). Humans can only see about 120 degrees in comparison! It would almost be like having eyes in the back of your head! These animals are often prey species so having such great peripheral vision allows them to be able to better detect a threat.

Owl See You Later: Owls, like the Great-Horned Owl pictured below, have eyes that are so big, that if humans had the same ratio of eyeballs to head, our eyes would be the size of softballs! These large eyes allow for as much light as possible to make it to the rods in the backs of their eyes which allows them to see in the dark much better than humans! They also have incredible depth perception, allowing them to spot a tiny mouse moving in the forest below with their binocular vision. Their eyes aren't round but are oblong to give them better binocular vision. Owls even have special bony rings that help hold their eyes in place since they're so big, but this has the disadvantage of preventing owls from being able to roll their eyes (every parent's dream). So instead, owls have developed a head that can swivel on their necks 280 degrees! They can look behind them, and then keep turning their heads to look to the side again. 

Great Horned Owl

Eagle Eye: When you hear that someone has an eagle eye it’s usually in reference to someone spotting something far away or really small and there’s a good reason for that. Eagles have INCREDIBLE vision and can spot something as small as a rabbit moving more than TWO MILES away! Like the owl they have fixed eye sockets, but unlike the owl, their eyes are angled and not just straight ahead of them so they have a field of vision that is nearly 360 degrees without turning their heads! 

Colorblindness: Have you ever wondered why a tiger is a bright orange in a forest that is mostly green? Just like some humans, many animals, but especially predators like bobcats, foxes, and coyotes, are red-green colorblind. This means that when they look into the forest with its reddish tree bark and green leaves, it all kinda looks the same color in different shades. If you are not red/green color blind, you can sort of mimic what it must be like by adding a Sepia filter to the camera and looking around. Why is this good news for prey species like deer (who are also red/green colorblind)? Because they’re kinda reddish in color which helps them blend into the forest with ease, making them harder to spot by predators! Tigers share the same defense, but as a predator! They are easily hidden in their homes with stripes to break up their body shape and a reddish coat that hides them from prey. One notable animal that can see color with ease is cougars, who have great color vision and use it to their advantage when hunting! 

Animals have incredible vision adaptations that help them survive in the wild. Come visit all of these animals at Oatland Island Wildlife Center and see if you can’t spot the things we talked about today.

We can’t wait to SEE you out on the trails!