Facts have proven that many animals have excellent night vision or sight, most especially the nocturnal creatures.
Afribeats presents the list of the top 12 animals who have great ability at night with their visuals; these animals range from the air to the land.
1. Owls
Owls are mostly identified as one of the kings of the night. Their eyes are shaped more like tubes than spheres, and they don’t move in their sockets, so they swivel their heads instead. Their eyes are very large and their retinas have five times the rod density than ours do to see in the dark.
2. Wolves
Wolves excel in low-light vision, detecting movement and subtle light changes, essential for tracking prey during their nocturnal hunts.
They have a strong sense of smell, making them excellent predators. Their whiskers act as receptors, thus helping them detect their surroundings.
3. Raccoons
Raccoons are feisty things. They are best known for invading your campsite and tossing over the garbage can in the driveway. They are also nocturnal animals with great night sight.
4. Geckos
Geckos are nocturnal lizards with eyes that are well-adapted to low-light conditions. Their large pupils help them to see in the dark. Their eyes allow them to see in the near-total darkness.
5. Frogs
Frogs have some special cells in their retinas that help them see at night. They can even see the colours clearly in the dark, which we can’t see.
6. Bats
Mainly the insect-eating bats rely heavily on their night vision to fly through and hunt in the dark. Bats can see in the dark but primarily rely on echolocation to navigate and hunt, using vision to complement their sonic abilities.
7. Cats
Cats are night prowlers who can see clearly in the dark. It is believed that they can see in about one-sixth of the light that we do.
Cats can see in just 0.125 lux or an eighth of what humans need. Cats have an elliptical pupil that narrows to a slit in daylight and becomes very wide at night to increase illumination. Their large lenses help gather up more light. A cat’s eyes glow as a result of light going through the retina and bouncing back out, and therefore light is absorbed twice.
8. Tarsiers
Tarsiers are the animal world’s equivalent of night-vision goggles. Tarsiers live in Southeast Asian trees and have large eyes that almost cover the animal’s whole head.
Tarsiers can see in light levels as low as 0.001 lux. Their large eyes allow more light in, and the pupil regulates the volume that enters the eye. This animal’s retina is similar to a cat’s with over 300,000 rods per square millimeter.
9. American Cockroach
According to a study by Matti Weckstrom; The American cockroach responds to photons to see at night. Light-sensitive cells found in the ommatidia can respond to less than one photon per second. In comparison, 100 photons coming in at once enable a human eye to detect an object. The American cockroach has photoreceptors that number between 16,000 and 28,000 that pool together in low light for a clearer image.
10. Deers
Like a few other animals, deer also have a reflective layer in the eyes which makes them glow. Deer can also see clearly in the dark.
They are adapted for night-time vigilance with large eyes that gather more light and a reflective layer that boosts their ability to detect predators.
11. Red Fox
Red foxes also hunt at night and are so versatile, they can live in both the countryside and very urban areas. Foxes are predominantly nocturnal, and their excellent night vision makes them great hunters at night.
12. Dung Beetles
Dung beetles can fly in light levels ranging from 0.001 to 0.0001 lux, to look for fresh dung to roll into balls. The beetles fly at various times of day and night. Nocturnal beetles see 85 times better than day beetles. Their compound eyes are divided into sections called ommatidia. Night beetles use twice as many ommatidia as beetles flying in the evening.
