How animals see the world

Our eyes are pretty amazing but we so often forget that animals see the world differently. What we see isn’t always the full picture and animals often see things in their own special way. Dogs have worse eyesight than humans but they can still see plenty of color. Some people believe that they can only see in black and white but this is not true. They can detect browns, blues, and yellows but have fewer color detecting cells than we do. They have better peripheral vision at 250 degrees compared to our field of vision of 180 degrees.

Cats generally have slightly worse vision than dogs but it is still pretty decent and they again have better peripheral vision than we do.

Then we come to birds, many of whom can see light that we cannot called ultraviolet light(UV). Birds have four colour cones compared to our three, one of which is extremely sensitive to UV wavelengths. Check out the infographic now for more information on how a variety of animals see the world.

An infographic by the team at GAP NSW

Article by Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke is Marketing Manager at a not for profit organisation called Greyhounds As Pets, which focuses on the adoption and fostering of retired greyhounds into loving homes. He is an animal lover and loves to create content about all animals but writes about greyhounds most often.

Written by Haley Nelson

I'm a science writer, filmmaker and host for Untamed Science. If it's quirky or adventurous science, I'm all over it. While my past study species have included bryophytes and leeches, my current passions are in the white squirrel phenomenon, trees, and earth science. I'm also married to Stone Age Man.

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