Everyone knows that cats have acute vision. Predators need it to hunt, and prey needs it to hide in time. What do we mean when we say “excellent vision”? We mean the ability to distinguish the slightest shades of the color spectrum, to clearly see objects near and far. Can these visual abilities be applied to animals, particularly cats? Or do house purrs see the world not so clear and bright, or maybe they think it is black and white? Today we will tell you Interesting Facts about how cats see, as well as how dogs see, and how animal vision differs from ours.

It is a known fact that cats see six times better than humans. Since the cat is a predator that prefers to hunt at night, nature took care of the perfection of its “night vision device.” The animal easily focuses its sharp gaze at any distance and is able to see all the smallest details of a small mouse in the deep twilight in thick grass. But contrary to popular belief, a cat cannot distinguish objects in pitch darkness. Her eyes need some source of light, at least a hint of it. Once on the retina, the light spot is duplicated many times, illuminating everything around.

If you close a person and a cat in a completely dark room, the animal, although it will not see anything around it, will still begin to move more confidently. She has an assistant and guide - sensitive vibrissae (whiskers). By spreading them and touching objects with them, the cat receives information about the surrounding space.

The pupil of cats is designed completely differently from that of us humans. It is positioned vertically and has the remarkable ability to transform from a narrow slit into huge circles, filling the entire iris. Nature has taken good care of protecting the furry predator’s retina: in bright light, the pupils completely constrict so that the rays do not damage their fine structure. In the dark, the pupils turn into black circles, absorbing the slightest source of light.

Have you ever seen a cat in the dark when the light falls on its face? The eyes become like spotlights, they burn with some unearthly fire, like the eyes of the “hound of Baskerville,” which is clearly visible in the photo taken at night. Cats' eyes don't actually glow, they just reflect the color that falls on them. What makes your eyes turn into spotlights? On the back wall of the cat's eye there is a so-called speculum - a layer of cells (tapetum). It intercepts the incident light and returns it back to the retina.

"50 shades of grey"

Yes, the subtitle contains the name of a fashionable film, but the article is about cats! So, the eyes of this cute creature are capable of distinguishing, of course, not 50, but 25 shades gray. This is necessary so that, again, in the twilight, you can clearly see the prey: its size and color. The photo below shows a city at night: above is what a person sees, below is a cat. It turns out that only a small part of the picture is accessible to our eyes, while the domestic purr is able to see even small details.

A faded world, but wide

Contrary to popular theory, the world does not appear to cats in gray or black and white. They can clearly distinguish colors, although not as brightly as humans. The human eye has color photoreceptors called cones, which provide us with sharp daytime vision and a rich color spectrum. In the eyes of cats, instead of cones, there are receptors responsible for night vision, the so-called rods. They give the ability to see at dusk. The ratio of rods to cones is different for all living beings and depends on priority. It is more important for people to see during the day and distinguish between many shades of the spectrum. It's important for cats to be able to see at night, but they don't care whether the color of the rose is ash pink or purplish red.

What colors are available to cats' eyes? These are shades within the range of 450-454 nm, as well as 550-561 nm, which corresponds to the blue-violet and yellow-green spectra.

How does a dog's vision work?

If you're wondering how dogs see, they have similarities to cats in terms of their cone to rod ratio. They have more of the latter, which means that a person’s friends see colors poorly, but see better than us in the twilight. The dog's eye can perceive medium and short wavelengths of color, that is, cool colors (blue, green, violet), but does not see long wavelengths (orange, yellow and red).

Some more interesting facts

In order to find out how cats see the world around them, scientists conducted an experiment. Electrodes were implanted into the cat's brain and connected to 177 neurons. When the data from the electrodes was received, they were displayed on a computer and people saw the world through the eyes of a “murka”. It turns out that the general plans in front of the cat appear very vague, but she sees the faces of people, the outlines of other animals, as well as the slightest movement very clearly. This is clearly shown in the photograph.

Now look at the next photo. It shows two pictures: the top one is the visible “picture of the world” by a person, the bottom one is, respectively, a cat. Pay attention to the ends of the photo. On the top side you see black stripes. This is where human peripheral vision ends (approximately 180°), blurring at the edges shows that the available image coverage of a person at the edges is deteriorating. And the bottom photo shows the peripheral vision of cats - more than 200°.

Cats most clearly distinguish objects at a distance of no more than 6 meters, and humans - 30-35 meters. In addition, the cat is not able to see the object right under its nose. She finds him by smell.

But cats can follow fast moving objects without losing sight of, for example, a flashing sunny bunny. A person does not have time to follow the rapid flashing. However, people are 10 times better able to see slowly moving objects, and a cat is not able to systematically maintain attention on one object without being distracted by others.

We hope that after reading the article, you learned a little more about everyone’s favorites - cute cats, these capricious, incomprehensible and very complex creatures.

To summarize the story, let us recall the main facts:

1. In pitch darkness, purrs cannot see anything, just like humans.
2. They contemplate the beauty of the world in faded shades of the cold color spectrum.
3. They only clearly see faces and moving objects.
4. Their area of ​​peripheral vision is wider than ours.
5. They cannot see beyond their noses beyond 6 meters.
6. They can see more shades of gray.
7. They see perfectly in dense twilight, if there is at least a little scattered light.

True, pets need their wonderful adaptation - night vision - mainly to find a bowl of food in the dark in the kitchen. If you have a furry friend at home, watch him, because the eyes of your beloved creature can tell a lot.

They say that cats have superb vision. However, this is not entirely true, because their eyes have some disadvantages compared to human organs. It will also be interesting to understand where the myths come from that cats are able to see the “other world.”

In general, the structure of the eye is similar to that of a human eye. Let us recall that the eye consists of three membranes: proteins (sclera), vascular and internal (retina). The top layer on the outside forms the cornea - the first light-refracting barrier. The second membrane - the choroid - forms the iris and pupil in front, the first is a muscle ring, and the second is just an opening with it.

Immediately behind the iris lies the lens - a glassy mineral formation. The inside of the eye is filled with a clear, thick liquid. The inner layer is represented primarily by the retina - a light-sensitive membrane consisting of cells called rods (perceive movement) and cones (responsible for color). A nerve with blood vessels approaches the eye from behind.

Cats, like humans, have binocular vision, that is, the eyes are located in front so that the pet can judge the distance to an object. The location of an object is determined by the difference in the position of the image on the retina of the left and right eyes. This property of vision is very necessary for predators to assess the distance to the prey.

Now we can move on to the structural features of the eye:

1. Cats have much larger corneas than humans. In this animal, it occupies almost the entire surface of the visible part of the eye, while in humans it occupies only 30-50% (depending on the shape of the eyes). In addition, the cornea of ​​cats is very convex. Thanks to this structure, the cat's eye captures not 180, but 200 degrees.
2. A cat perceives the spectrum of light differently. She does not have different red and blue shades, she feels yellow worse, which is why the picture in colors becomes more sparse. However, in general, the image in the spectrum is quite distinguishable and quite similar.
3. The pupil has a different shape - elongated, granular. In humans, meanwhile, it is round. Thanks to this structure, the pupil can narrow and limit the flow of light more. Cats need this because their eyes are more sensitive to light.
4. The posterior membrane of the inner part of the eye has another layer - the tapetum. This is a glossy layer that reflects some of the rays onto the retina that would otherwise be simply scattered or absorbed by the posterior tissues. Therefore, a cat's eyes are more sensitive to light.
5. A person has a blind spot on the back of the inside of the eye, an area where there are no light-sensitive cells (this is where the nerve enters). In cats, such a zone does not exist; at the point of entry of the nerve there is a special disk in which the cones are located.
6. A cat has 25 times more rods, which is why it is able to see in the dark, since these are the cells that are responsible for sensitivity to light.

It is because of the multiple reflections of light inside a cat's eye that the pupils of cats glow in the dark when a flashlight beam is pointed at them. In this case, the reflected fire changes its hue at different positions of the source. The change in color depends greatly on the pigmentation of the tapetum.

How many colors are there?

Back in the middle of the 20th century, it was believed that cats had black and white vision, but now the perception of color by cats has not only been proven, but a detailed spectrum has even been clearly established. Cats cannot distinguish between blue and red, worse - orange and brown. But they perceive violet, blue and yellow normally.

This gradation is associated with a different number of cones - cells that are responsible for the perception of a certain color. A separate group of cells is responsible for each shade. Cats have a different percentage of each cone class than humans, causing different sensitivity to components solar spectrum.

How far can they see

Cats have terrible myopia. In fact, they can normally and clearly distinguish objects only at a distance of up to 20 meters. When an object moves 60 meters or more away, it becomes so blurry for cats that they cannot distinguish its outlines at all. Maximum clarity is achieved when the object is removed from 75 centimeters to 6 meters - this is the distance of a cat's jump.

Why is this so, since cats are predators, which means that visual acuity is the most important factor for them? The fact is that they hunt mainly small animals, which are found quite often in the forest. In addition, their hunting area is tall grass in the field and undergrowth. And there you don’t need to look at a long distance, since the space is cluttered with foliage and trees.

In contrast, people hunted large animals, which are very rare and live mainly in open spaces. To find them, it was necessary to clearly distinguish traces, blood stains and at the same time look at considerable distances. Because of this, a person has strong vision clarity at long distances and good perception of the entire spectrum of light.

How they see in the dark

Of course, no animal can see in complete darkness, since some amount of light is required to perceive colors. Cats distinguish objects in minimal lighting. Pets need 10 times less light than humans, so what is pitch darkness for us is twilight for cats.

Cats' sensitivity to light is due to the presence of a reflective film inside the eye, due to which the rays are not scattered, but are completely collected on the retina. Because of this, for normal perception of the surrounding world, a cat needs a 10 times less intense source. Due to the reflected light, a cat's eyes glow in the dark.

The pigmentation of the tapetum and iris is controlled by a single gene, so that in blue-eyed cats (no matter what color coat) this membrane does not reflect light back, which is why their vision is much weaker than that of other representatives of the cat family. In general, their vision is comparable to human perception, except that they see a little better in the dark due to the large number of cones (but not much).

"Other World"

Rumors that cats can see another world are fueled by several factors:

1. Pets distinguish ultrasonic vibrations. The range is from 45 Hz to 64,000 Hz, while mice communicate at a frequency of 20-50 kHz. So when a cat stares at the corner of the room or the wall, then, most likely, the problem is not ghosts, but cockroaches, mice, or simply a cracked partition.

2. Cats are not able to perceive ultraviolet or infrared light, since both types of radiation are filtered out by the lens and cornea. But they have vibrises - thin antennae that are responsible for tactile sensations. Including the perception of heat. It is thanks to them that they can find currents of hot and cold air.

3. The cat does not see any “auras”, but, like a person, it is able to distinguish the internal state of an individual by non-verbal signs: facial expressions, intonations, body movements. This skill develops in all animals that communicate with people for a long time.

Cats have a faster perception speed. For a person, it is enough for the images on the TV to change at a speed of 24 frames per second. A cat needs 40-50 pictures per second for the flickering to turn into a full-fledged video. Not all TVs have this frame rate.

The cat sees itself in the mirror and realizes that there is some kind of animal there. True, she is not able to understand that this is precisely her reflection. Also, many pets are frightened by their own reflection, as they think that in front of them is an animal that has no smell and does not make sounds. This can be compared to when a person sees a ghost.

The cat perceives people's faces as yellow, since it does not distinguish between orange and red shades. The animal can normally distinguish its nose, lips, hair and eyes at distances of up to 5 meters. At a distance of 5 to 10 meters, facial features gradually blur, and then elements of clothing. At a distance of more than 10 meters, a cat can only distinguish the silhouette of a person, and can recognize its owner only by voice and smell.

Many animal lovers wonder how cats see our world. This varies greatly depending on how people perceive things around them. This is largely due to the structure of the animals' eyes.

Structure and features of cat's eyes

Cats have very large, protruding eyes. They protrude deep into the skull. This limits eye movement; to examine objects located on the sides, the cat must turn its head. Despite this, the overview of animals is much larger. It is approximately 200 degrees. This is due to the convexity of the eyeball. Structural features:

• The lens is larger than a person's.
• A cat clearly sees only at close range and only what its eyes are focused on.
• The retina of the eyes consists of cells that respond to light. There are a lot more “sticks”. They are the ones who react to light, and the “cones” - to the color scheme. In cats it is predominantly blue-yellow with some green.

The cat recognizes fast moving objects well (at a speed of 48 frames per minute) precisely due to the “sticks”. However, this also has its drawbacks. The cat may not notice slow movements, or not notice them at all.

Assessing distant and near views

It is believed that a cat only recognizes objects that are nearby well. Scientists have confirmed that these animals are indeed myopic. They can distinguish objects well only at a distance of up to twenty meters. The cat sees everything that is further away very blurry, without contours or boundaries.

At the same time, the animal also distinguishes objects that are located directly in front of its muzzle or at a distance of up to 0.5 meters. In this case, the mustache and ears help to observe the near world.

The famous researcher and artist Nikolai Lamm was able to take a number of photos that depict how a cat sees the world around him with his own eyes. Cat's eyes are best suited for detecting rapid movements. A person can only notice a sliding shadow, but an animal can see not only in detail the running mouse, but also its route.

Features of vision of four-legged pets

Scientists attribute the vision of representatives of the cat family, like that of humans, to the binocular type. The animal can view objects with both eyes at once. This is inherent in nature for the possibility of hunting or orientation in the area. Thanks to the interesting structure of the eyes, the cat quickly and at a distance determines the location of prey.

• From its ancient ancestors the animal received a stereoscopic visual type. The cat sees the world around it in three dimensions. This helps to accurately determine distances to objects of interest.
• The cat perfectly sees moving objects on a horizontal surface. To view the sides and top, the animal turns its head. However, this does not detract from the ability to accurately determine the distance to jump, although it does change the angle of view.
• A cat sees stationary objects poorly, but moving ones – perfectly. Animals have vertical pupils, the constriction of which is more intense due to the brightness of the light. In twilight or darkness, on the contrary, expansion occurs. Such features of the pupils allow animals to see perfectly at any light intensity, regardless of the time of day.

The cat has a third eyelid, endowed with protective function. It saves the eyeball from injury and drying out. Thanks to the third eyelid, a cat can look for a long time without blinking.

Seeing the world in twilight or darkness

Animals see in the dark due to the unique structure of the retina. The receptors are the same as in humans - cones and rods. However, the first less than the second about twenty-five times. The cat's organs of vision have many light-sensitive receptors. They allow animals to navigate perfectly even in poor lighting.

At the same time, the cats' gaze glows. This is due to the presence of tapetum - a layer of substance covering the back surface of the retina of a cat's eye. It acts like a mirror, reflecting light from the tapetum. As a result, the cat is endowed with sharper vision than humans.

In pitch darkness, a cat, just like a person, sees nothing. Visual acuity is significantly reduced. The animal cannot distinguish the outlines of objects. However, if there is even a very weak light source, a cat's vision becomes much sharper than a human's. The cat sees perfectly in the twilight. In low light, an animal's visual acuity is 7 times higher than a human's.

Color range of perception

Many animals see the world in black and white. However, cat vision is endowed with a more diverse range of shades. However, their color vision is very different from humans. A cat does not clearly see all colors, but only their rich spectrum of shades. Features of color differences:

• According to the old theory, the animal can only distinguish 25 tones of gray. This was explained by the fact that the cat hunts for rodents more often. The color of their skin is painted in various shades of gray. It was believed that it was these that a cat could spill in poor lighting.
• Modern scientists have already proven that the color scheme of a cat's eye is very diverse. The animal is able to distinguish other shades besides gray - blue, green, yellow. However, in the cat version the shades are duller and lack brightness.
• Do cats cut colors? Animals see mainly the hay-yellow spectrum. It is very difficult to distinguish between red and green. Yellow and white, brown and red and orange are often confused. Variety of cat breeds color range not necessary for life. For them, it does not matter what color (and how saturated it is) the surrounding objects are painted.

The cat sees people not only with ordinary vision, but also with internal vision, and the sense of smell also helps. There is an opinion that animals consider people simply larger relatives, whose responsibilities include the care and maintenance of their smaller brothers. However, due to the peculiarities of the organs of vision, when contact is too close or 6 meters away, the cat sees the owner very vaguely and is more oriented by smell.

Features of the energetic perception of the world

Since ancient times, stories have been told about the uniqueness of a cat's vision - to see what is inaccessible to the human eye. For example, energy entities or ghosts of the other world, brownies, dark forces. Features of energy perception:

• A cat really has a strong aura, which extends not only to itself, but also to the people and space around it.
• An animal can not only protect the surrounding world from negative energy, but also eliminate the existing one. This is confirmed by numerous cases where a cat treats its owners by seeing a painful flow and directing it outside the territory that it considers its own.
• The animal is just as sensitive to the emotional coloring of a person, which it “sees” with its senses of touch.

A cat may stare into space with dilated pupils, or it may follow with its eyes something invisible to the human eye. In these cases, perhaps the animal is observing astral entities.

Communicating what a cat sees through its gaze

What the cat sees cannot be described. But she is able to “talk” with her eyes. An animal can be frightened by something invisible to humans. Then the cat looks at the owner with wide open eyes and dilated pupils. With a normal background of the surrounding world, when from the point of view of the animal everything is fine, the gaze is squinted, the pupils are constricted.

Help with viewing the world around you

A cat’s ability to navigate in pitch darkness, and in twilight not to bump into surrounding objects, is due to excellent spatial memory, sense of smell and touch. These senses are indispensable assistants when viewing the world around us.

The cat sees him vaguely, smeared, without clear outlines. The listed feelings become an addition, replacing the brightness of shades and clear boundaries, which makes it unimportant for the cat how she sees the world - in color or not.

Above upper lip cats have vibrissae - thin hairs - on the chin and above the eyes. They are hypersensitive, helping to better navigate the world around us, and are an important addition to the eyes. As a cat ages, its visual acuity decreases. The mustache is getting longer. This partially compensates for lost vision.

The structure of the cat's organs of vision is so unique that animals see the world around them differently than humans. The lack of brightness of colors and blurred images at long distances, cats are compensated by nature with other features - a heightened sense of touch and smell, to see what remains hidden to humans.

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People have always been fascinated by the unusual eyes of cats, which amaze with their ability to either dilate or constrict the pupils to minimum sizes. Sometimes it seems that cats see something completely inaccessible to the eyes of people, about which there are many myths among the people. To this day, many cat lovers are interested in the following questions: what colors do cats see? Why do cats see in the dark? We will try to give a detailed answer to these and other questions in our article.

Everyone knows that a cat's vision can easily cope with pitch darkness. Zoologists, figuring out why cats' vision can easily cope without sunlight, found that this is due to the anatomical structure of the pupil. At night, pets see very well, and their pupils dilate during excitement or hunting. In order to better examine the object that interests her, she constricts her pupils, thereby focusing on the prey. A vertical pupil is much more advantageous than a round one and helps to completely protect from sunlight, as a result of which it completely protects the cat’s vision from ultraviolet radiation.

A cat’s vision improves at night; it sees about the same as a person during the day.

People exaggerate a cat's vision; in the daytime, pets see much worse than them. Cats' eyes are very sensitive to bright light; the vertical pupil helps protect the eye's special sensitivity. On a bright sunny day, they squint and just like to take a nap, at which time their vision is blurry and unclear.

Cats, like their owners, have binocular vision, that is, each eye sees a certain picture, then it overlaps and folds into a single image. Moreover, cats bypassed people here too. A person’s viewing radius is 180 degrees, while a cat’s is 20 degrees more – 200.

Shades of colors distinguished by a cat

Owners often wonder if cats see colors. It used to be that cats see the world only in black and white, but this is not true. Of course, they do not perceive their surroundings in such bright colors as people do, but they still have some shades. They perceive the world as if in a haze, their colors are more faded. The cat sees gray, blue and green color, but does not distinguish between red, yellow and orange at all. Doesn't see the difference between blue, cyan and violet, white and yellow.

The reason for the night glow of the eyes is specific formations (tapetums), which act as a reflector of light, which is directed into the retina of the eye - this is the reason for the glow in the dark of cat eyes.

Do cats see the paranormal world?

Many mustachioed lovers claim that their pets see the paranormal world, something inaccessible to the human eye. This is expressed in the abnormal behavior of cats. As a result, pets seem to be observing objects unknown to us. Suddenly they jump off and start rushing around, knocking over everything in their path. At this time, their pupils dilate and their fur stands on end.

Zoologists explain these facts in a blurry picture that appears in the minds of pets. They perceive all changes occurring around them with their ears. The slightest rustle in a still picture leads to such inappropriate behavior.

However, everyone knows perfectly well that there is a world that is not perceived by people, ultrasound, which is perfectly perceived by animals, light waves that are invisible to the human eye. Due to its natural characteristics, a cat can perceive the world much more widely than a human.

How far can a cat see

Cats can notice an object at a distance of 800 meters, and they clearly see the world from a meter to 60, but up close they see quite poorly. Sometimes the pet walks completely without noticing the objects located right under its nose. This is due to the fact that cats are naturally myopic, and their vibrissae help them cope with close distances.

What cats see in the mirror and on TV

Sometimes owners laugh and watch as cats comically attack mirrors. As a result, the frightened animal arches its back, bristles its whiskers, and flattens its ears. So what do they see in the mirror? Mustaches see their reflection in the mirror, but they do not understand that they see themselves. They are frightened by the fact that their auditory and tactile receptors do not transmit any information about the presence of another animal. Cats simply cannot form a picture in their heads from the information received.

When it comes to TV, most zoologists say that cats only notice the flickering on the screen. They are fascinated by objects moving on the screen. However, everyone knows that cats love to watch programs about animals; without looking up from the screen, they watch the flight of birds and the hunting of cats. Moreover, they do not come off the screen even when the sound is turned off. As soon as the channel is switched, the animal, having lost interest, leaves the room. Scientists are looking for an exact explanation for this fact. this moment they can't give.

How does a cat see a person?

The mustachioed pet sees the owner as he is, only in a slightly different color. When a person is in a place remote from him, the pet perceives only the outline of the figure. Up close, it can barely distinguish the outlines of its owner’s face, being guided only by smell.

As we see, our favorites are rather mysterious creatures, which we are sometimes unable to understand. They still do not allow us to fully reveal all their secrets, and sometimes it feels like they live in their own world, closed to people.

In the article I will talk about the features of cat vision, answering the most common questions about why a cat can see in the dark and analyze the main differences between the vision of a cat and a person.

How cats see the world around them

The close location of the cat's eyes ensures that the field of vision of the right and left eyes intersects. Thanks to binocular vision, two eyes create a single picture.

Signals entering the brain make the final image three-dimensional, so the cat is able to evaluate the basic criteria of a certain object:

• size;
• shape;
• distance.

Mustachioed pets see the world around them as colorful and three-dimensional, but their color palette is poorer than that of humans. They are excellent at distinguishing their owner from strangers, but they do not see well up close, so they prefer to use their sense of smell.

Cats mark their owners using special glands located on their faces.

This helps them easily recognize their favorite provider without the help of the visual organ.

What colors can cats see?

Photosensitive cells (photoreceptors) are responsible for the perception of colors:

• cones necessary for recognizing shades in bright light;
• rods that help determine shades in low light (night vision).

The human eye is equipped with 3 types of cones that help distinguish shades of the color spectrum:

• green-yellow;
• violet-blue;
• yellow-red.

Cat's eyes are equipped with a large number of cones that distinguish the first 2 ranges, but the 3rd option is difficult to distinguish. Also, unlike two-legged owners, mustachioed pets perfectly understand all shades of gray.

Thus, the primary colors seen by a cat's eyes are:

• green;
• blue;
• grey.

When choosing the next toy for your furry pet, try to avoid yellow and red shades.

The structure of a cat's eye

The cat's eye is similar to the human eye and consists of:

• the pupil, which regulates the amount of incoming light;
• the cornea, which performs a protective and optical (refracts the incoming image) function;
• the iris, which determines what color the eyes are;
• the lens, which is responsible for determining the distance to an object;
• vitreous body, permeable light rays to the retina;
• the retina, which forms the final image and sends the signal to the brain.

The most common eye colors in the cat family are yellow and green.

For outbreds, eye color does not matter, but in the situation with some show-class animals it plays an important role

Despite the similar structure, the cat's pupil has a slit-like shape that is different from the human one.

The pupil dilates in the absence of light and enlarges in bright light, protecting the sensitive surface.

The human pupil behaves with precision, but vice versa.

Why does a cat's eyes glow in the dark?

The glowing eyes of a cat's face, which frightened our ancestors, do not have any mystical background, but have a logical scientific explanation. The posterior surface of the retina contains the tapetum, a layer of the choroid that performs the reflective function of a mirror.

The pupil, which is maximally dilated at night, absorbs more light passing through the eye and hitting the tapetum, which sends the light signal back in the form of a shimmering glow and appears to glow at night.
Ominous red reflections are characteristic of blue-eyed cats, and the usual greenish reflections are characteristic of yellow-eyed ones.

How cats see at night

Thanks to a large number rods, which are responsible for orientation in dim lighting, cats see perfectly in the dark. The ability to distinguish shades of gray builds a clear contrasting picture, allowing you to easily track prey even with a gray color.

Vision depends entirely on light, so in complete darkness cats, like humans, see nothing.

However, this does not at all interfere with their ability to navigate, because they have a tactile function.

It is interesting that in the daytime a cat’s vision is inferior to that of a human, but at night, on the contrary, it is 6 times superior.

In pitch darkness, without the slightest source of light, the cat sees nothing

In addition to the rods, the dilated pupil also plays a role, allowing it to capture the maximum amount of light.

Differences with human vision

The main differences between cat and human vision include:

1. Viewing angle. In cats it exceeds 180°, which is familiar to humans, and reaches 200°. This natural feature allows small hunters to catch prey over a wide range.
2. Perception of moving objects. The lifestyle of predatory ancestors, who obtained food by hunting, provided the cat family with a unique opportunity to detect moving objects with lightning speed. However, static, easily distinguished by humans, is difficult for cats. Moustachioed pets have poor vision in the vertical plane, so a mouse running away along a tree trunk has a much better chance than one trying to escape on the ground.
3. The ability to distinguish objects at a distance. Cats see in a certain range of 0.75-6m. Due to this, they have difficulty finding a tasty morsel close up, relying solely on their tactile senses. The same goes for distant objects. The pet is able to detect them only in the presence of movement, and the picture will still remain blurry.
4. Color gamut, contrast and night vision. Cats' vision is less rich and contrasty, but significantly superior to human vision in the dark.

The cat family's distrust of mirrors is due to their inability to match the reflection with their image.

How a cat reacts to a mirror depends on its age and experience.

Some cats' interest in television is due to movement and flickering on the screen. At the same time, the peculiarities of the perception of television images are still poorly understood and leave more questions than answers.

In conclusion, I note that cats’ perception of the world around them is not very different from the human world. They also see color and three-dimensional images, and according to some criteria they significantly exceed human vision.

Even taking into account the peculiarities of perception of distance, which interferes with close contact, a cat can easily recognize its beloved owner using smell, hearing and touch.