How cats see
The cat's eyes have long been perceived as a kind of standard of excellent vision. In art, the cat's eye often symbolizes mysticism: its image can be found in paintings with an "otherworldly" meaning or in movies and cartoons of the corresponding subject. This is largely due to their unusual shape and the amazing ability of the pupils to expand and contract. In everyday life, we regularly make sure that cats really have good eyesight. If you carefully observe them, you can easily notice how easily they calculate the distance to the prey and are perfectly oriented in the dark. It may even give the impression that their visual organs distinguish something inaccessible to the human eye. So, there is no doubt that cats see well. But how exactly do they see?
Features of cats' vision
The cat's eyes are amazing on their own. In relation to the size of the body of our whiskered and purring pets, they are very large, and thanks to the convex shape, an overview of up to 270 degrees is provided, which exceeds the human threshold. The eye color of different breeds is not the same, it varies from golden-light to dark green. There are cats with blue eyes, for example, Burmese .
In addition to the amazing ability of the pupils to expand and contract depending on the strength of the luminous flux, which simultaneously reflects the mood and experiences of our fluffy pet, the presence of the third eyelid in the cat's eye is also impressive. It plays a protective role, protecting the organ of vision from drying out, ingress of foreign bodies and possible damage. This is especially important for predatory representatives of the feline family, making their way through various thickets during the hunt. To see the third eyelid, it is absolutely not necessary to look into the eyes of a tiger or a lion – it is also perfectly visible in domestic cats. It is enough to find a pet in a relaxed state with half-closed eyes.
And yet, how do cats see our world? It has been scientifically proven that the vision of domestic cats has a binocular type, which is characterized by the ability to simultaneously clearly see the image of an object with both eyes. This happens due to the overlap of the surveyed areas in a certain way. This way of visual perception of the surrounding reality is important not only for orientation on the terrain, but also serves as an indispensable aid in hunting, allowing you to accurately determine where the prey is. The features of the structure of the eyes also help the cat to react quickly to moving objects, and above all to moving horizontally on the surface.
However, due to the location of the eyes deep in the skull, their movements are limited, and in order to view objects located on the sides, the animal must turn its neck. Playing with it, you can often notice how the cat, before jumping, shakes its head up and down. Such movements change the angle of her vision, which makes it possible to calculate the distance to the prey with greater accuracy. As for stationary objects, cats do not see them very well. The unusual structure of the pupil also helps to track down prey: it is vertical in cats (unlike a round human), which, depending on the amount of light, greatly expands or narrows.
Cats' vision in the dark
Hardly anyone doubts that cats can see well in the dark. But how well? And are their visual organs able to distinguish anything in the pitch darkness?
The ability of night vision is due to the peculiarities of the structure of the retina in muroks. It is equipped with rods and cones, that is, the same receptors as the retina of the human eye. However, there are differences. For example, cats have fewer cones, which are responsible for color vision, than sticks. And significantly: 20-25 times. At the same time, the eyes of whiskered domestic predators are equipped with light-sensitive receptors. There are a lot of them, which allows cats to navigate in poor light conditions.
The back wall of the retina is lined with tapetum, a special substance with mirror properties. Thanks to him, the light that hits the sticks is reflected twice. As a result, our furry pets see much better than a person in low light conditions – about 7 times! Their vision at nightfall is very good and in comparison with other animals. In the dark, cats' eyes even glow, which causes mystical associations. This feature is caused by just the same tapetum.
There is an opinion that cats can see even in absolute darkness, but scientific research has not confirmed it. In the complete absence of light sources, cats, like humans, are unable to distinguish objects. Maybe that's why cats feel comfortable in darkened rooms? Watch them in the dark, and you will see that they are perfectly oriented in space, do not bump into surrounding objects, and successfully hunt rodents.
What colors does a cat distinguish?
It used to be assumed that cats see the world in black and white, without distinguishing colors at all. Over time, this stereotype was refuted.
Of course, the cat's vision is not fully colored, that is, they do not perceive the surrounding reality in such bright colors as humans. The perception of color by our home "matroskins" is somewhat faded, they see the world as if in a haze. For example, they do not distinguish colors such as red, orange and yellow at all. But they see green, blue and gray colors perfectly. At the same time, the difference between blue and blue, as well as white, purple and yellow colors is not fixed by their visual organs.
There was also an opinion that cats are able to distinguish many shades of gray, namely about 25. The reason for this version was that domestic cats most often hunt mice and rats, whose fur is colored in gray-brown tones. Since it has been proven that in conditions of poor lighting, the cat's eyes retain the ability to distinguish gray, the version about the ability of these animals to distinguish many of its shades can be considered confirmed.
It may seem to many of our readers that nature, having "deprived" cats of full-fledged color vision in the human understanding, significantly "deprived" their worldview, narrowed it. In fact, these animals do not need their eyes to have similar characteristics – if only because, unlike humans, they do not paint pictures and do not compose poetry. A cat is a predator, even if it is domestic, and it does not need to identify surrounding objects by color for a full-fledged hunt and a comfortable life. After all, in order to realize the hunting instinct, it is important for a murka not to miss the movement of potential prey through the terrain. And such a "trifle" as the color of wool does not matter for the implementation of this task.
If you want to learn more about the color component of a cat's vision, refer to the works of American artist and researcher Nikolai Lamm. With the help of photo illustrations, he tried to reflect in what colors these affectionate purring creatures perceive the surrounding reality. The master created his works with the involvement of ophthalmologists, felinologists and other specialists, that is, there is no near-scientific otsebyatin in them.
Cat's vision at a distance
Our beloved cats, it turns out, "suffer" ... farsightedness, that is, everything that is in front of them at a distance closer than 50 cm, they do not distinguish. Therefore, when playing with a pet, there is no need to bring the toy too close to its muzzle. Cats "see" what is happening right in front of their noses with the help of their sense of smell and vibrissae. Vibrissae, specialized sensory organs, are understood to be mustaches, hair near the eyes ("eyebrows"), on the upper and lower jaws, scanning the nearby space. Small children, playing with kittens and adult cats, sometimes cut off these important formations, thereby actually depriving their pets of near vision.
Meanwhile, at a distance of 1 to 20 meters (according to some sources, even up to 60 m), cats can see clearly.
What does the cat see in the mirror and on TV?
Surely each of us has at least once in his life watched how cats behave in front of a mirror. It is impossible to look at it without laughing: the animal, with its ears flattened, literally attacks it, arching its back and bristling its whiskers. Reacting so violently to their own reflection, the seals do not even realize that they see themselves. In fact, what scares them is not the reflection as such, but the fact that they perceive it as the presence of another animal, information about which is not transmitted by auditory and tactile receptors. They just can't understand how it turns out that they see their relative in front of them, but at the same time they can't even smell him.
As for the TV, most researchers claim that our four-legged friends only see flickering, but objects moving on the screen still interest them to some extent. For example, cats like to watch programs about animals. They, without taking their eyes off, as if fascinated, follow the flight of birds, the hunting of tigers, lions and other representatives of cats. If you turn off the sound, it will not affect the cat in any way, she will continue to watch. But once you switch the channel, your cat will lose interest in what is happening on the screen and even leave the room. How cats selectively see or understand that "their own" or the same birds (the object of hunting) are shown on TV, scientists cannot yet understand.
How do cats see people?
Cats see their owner, and all people, as they really are – in height, build, body weight, and so on. Unless mustachioed pets visually perceive us in a slightly different color. If a person is close, cats distinguish his facial features poorly, focusing only on the smell. If the owner is at a distance, then the animal sees only the outline of the figure without detailed detail. Some zoologists put forward a version that cats perceive people as their larger relatives who feed them, take care of them and take care of them.
Whatever it was, the vision of domestic cats is unique. It is a complex mechanism that has developed over a long evolutionary path. Due to the special structure of the eyes, their location on the animal's muzzle and the ability to see potential prey even in low light conditions, cats were not only able to survive during natural selection, but also became perhaps the most successful hunters in comparison with other animals. The knowledge that we humans have of the peculiarities of visual perception of these amazing animals of the surrounding world helps us to better understand them and become even closer to them.