Why do cats' eyes glow in the dark? Why do cats' eyes glow in the dark?

Internal organs cats are identical to the organs of other mammals. The same cannot be said about the senses, including the eyes. They are endowed with special properties necessary for the normal functioning of a predator.

In complete darkness, an animal's vision is no different from a human's. In dim light, their orientation improves significantly. The ability to process any accessible light source is increased.

Advantage of the cat's gaze:

• large pupil and lens;
• close location of the cornea to the retina;
• roundness and compactness eyeball;
• extended viewing angle.

Cats have the ability to accumulate light. The mechanism is called “luminous wallpaper”. It is located behind the retina and consists of 15 spheres.

The functioning of an animal's eyes is similar to the working principle of a camera. Light rays sneak through the hole, the dimensional frequencies of which are modified. The quantitative composition of light is controlled by the iris, and focused by the lens. Envelopment of the retina occurs. It sends an impulse to the brain center.

The retina is endowed with sensory cells:

1. The first: is responsible for excellent vision at night and sensitivity to movement during dim flickering lamps.
2. The second has resolving power.
3. The slit pupil provides protection from bright flickering light.

A cat has binocular vision, just like a human. Due to the stereoscopic effect, the predator assesses the reach of prey.

glowing eyes

Scientific background

The burning eyes of an animal are nothing more than a reflection of light. The fact is explained simply:

• a beam of light penetrates the pupil area;
• then into the lens;
• stops on the retina;
• a call comes in occipital part cephalic cortex;
• the moment light penetrates the retina, the predator’s eyes begin to glow.

More details:

Behind the retina are choroids called tapetum. They are divided into two types: "Tapetum lucidum" and "Tapetum nigrum". This vessel protrudes in the shape of a diamond, occupying a wide area. When a light beam envelops the retina, the topetup displays it.

The signal is strengthened and excellent visibility in the dark is ensured. In other words, the animal’s eyeball has a built-in so-called amplifier. Therefore, even in the smallest light from lanterns or the moon, the predator has the ability of excellent vision. The cat's eyes glowing in the twilight are nothing more than a reflection of reflected light.

Scientific, interesting fact: Improved night vision is an extraordinary invention of evolution. Not only cats, but also almost all nocturnal predators are gifted with the talent of night vision and sparkling eyes. For example, an owl. This bird sees the movement of the prey at a distance of three hundred meters. In the twilight she sees 10 times better than a pet, while in daytime she is blind for days. The second example is the marsupial loris. The beast lives in Australia. Hunts exclusively at night. His huge, sparkling eyes see any crawling insect in the darkness.

What colors do cats see?

There is an opinion among people that cats see the world in black and white. However, scientists consider this statement to be erroneous. Researchers have proven that a predator detects several colors:

• black;
• white;
• yellow;
• green;
• blue;
• grey.

Light-sensitive receptors - cones - are responsible for determining the color worldview. There are two types of receptors (three in humans). Therefore, the brightness of the picture is reduced, and the perception of warm colors is deteriorated. There is a confusion of colors.

The color spectrum and visual acuity improves if the target object is at a considerable distance (600 - 700 meters) and moves in a horizontal direction.

Recommendation: The animal’s favorite color is gray. This range appears to them clearly, in several shades. Therefore, when purchasing a toy for your beloved pet, do not choose bright colors. He will be happy with a small, gray trinket that resembles a mouse.

Unavailable paints

Cats recognize six colors. However, some shades are unattainable for them:

• red;
• brown;
• orange;
• bright, colorful tones.

You can add to the listed shades green color. They see him blurry. They identify a delicacy in the form of grass by smell.

Myths and legends

The cat is a mystical animal! Medieval Europe considered the predator a messenger evil spirits. His eyes, glowing in the dark, scared people. Therefore, in dark times, animals, witches and magicians were burned at the stake.

The colossal invasion of rat packs, which are carriers of infections, has sobered people up. Everyone learned about the true purpose of cats!

Myths about the magical, glowing eyes of a graceful animal:

Egypt

One of the devoted assistants of the goddess Bastet was a cat. With the onset of darkness, the deity descended to the ground in order to protect people from predatory animals. Due to certain circumstances, the goddess could not be constantly present among people. Then, in order not to leave humanity unattended, she sent her faithful subordinate, a cat, to Earth. It is from that moment that the pet lives with people, protecting them from offenders. With the onset of darkness, the cat reports to its mistress about the completed task. Communicating with the goddess, the predator's eyes glow, emitting green.

For the ancient Egyptians, the cat represented fertility, life and well-being. For killing an animal they were sentenced to death penalty. A cat that died a natural death was embalmed and buried with honors.

Rome

Proud and noble Romans considered the cat a symbol of independence and freedom. Every resident of Italy knew the legend about the fearless furry predator. Legend: “a heartless Roman owned a circus, which consisted of a huge number of animals. Every day the animals dreamed of escape, but were afraid of the cruelty of their owner. Only the cat was able to realize her plan. Late at night, the animal gnawed through the rope shackles and got out to freedom.”

After an incident at the circus, the goddess Libertas gave a gift to the cat unusual eyes, which can always illuminate dark roads. From that time on, the predator became free.

Japan

Japanese legend says: the cat was endowed with burning eyes by the Supreme Gods. They made the predator the guardian of the Maneik-Neko sanctuary. The temple represents luck and prosperity. A mystical predator protects a holy place. It is considered a great honor if the glowing gaze of a cat falls on a person at night. Fate will be favorable to him, luck and happiness will always be nearby.

To this day, many people are convinced that cats are connected by a thin thread with the astral world. A sensitive line connects furry pets with otherworldly light. It transmits information where human consciousness is powerless!

Finally

The cat inherited energetic behavior in the twilight from its ancestors - wild cats. For excellent orientation in the dark, the predator is endowed with a special structure of the eyeball. The eyes are able to capture light from any source: stars, moon, car headlights. Glowing eyes fluffy pet just reflections of reflected light rays.

As you know, cats have always been considered minions of evil spirits, as well as active assistants to witches and sorcerers. The eyes of these animals played a significant role in this. Not only do they have a vertical and narrow pupil, unlike other animals, but cats' eyes glow in the dark!

Agree, something like this in the Middle Ages could scare anyone, because people sacredly believed in gods, evil spirits and otherworldly forces. Today, no one can be surprised by this effect of cat’s eyes, because people have become more educated, but many are still perplexed: why does a cat’s eyes glow in the dark? Let's look at this unusual phenomenon together and find out why this amazing glow occurs.

So why do the eyes glow?

The cat is a domestic predator, a descendant of true hunters, whose lives directly depended on whether they could catch their prey. Powerful paws, movable spine for instantaneous acceleration, sharp claws - all this was created by evolution to improve the hunting abilities of big cats.

However, these properties were supplemented by one more - thanks to the specific structure of the eye, cats see perfectly in the dark, and can hunt even after sunset. This is undeniable competitive advantage, which was passed on to our pets.

What is the reason for this acute vision? It's all about the structure of the eye - all the light passing through the pupil hits the retina, but only a small part of it causes an impulse in the sensitive cells. That is, if there is special system, allowing one to collect all the remaining light and direct it to light-sensitive cells, vision would be many times sharper. And cats have such a system.

This is the tapetum - or the mirror fundus of the eye, which reflects the transmitted light back. Thus, the light is used twice, significantly increasing visual acuity.

It is this mirror coating that reflects light, creating the illusion of glowing eyes. In domestic cats, it has a different shade - from green to yellow, and thanks to this, the reflection also changes its color.

Simply put, we see light reflected from the fundus of the eye, and the less light there is, the weaker it will be. this effect. And therefore, when they say that cats’ eyes glow in the dark, this is not entirely true, because... there must be at least some source of light. In complete darkness cat's eyes, of course, will not glow: they simply will have nothing to reflect.

That's the whole secret of this interesting phenomenon like the glowing eyes of cats. Our pets are full of surprises, and if we want to learn to understand them well, we need to be interested similar phenomena and study your charges.

The animal world is extremely diverse. Even those pets that live next to a person for many centuries sometimes cause surprise and a desire to ask questions. Eg, why does a cat's eyes glow in the dark?? If you have a cat living in your house, you have already noticed how brightly its eyes sparkle. dark time days, especially if at this time she is watching you from above. Why human eyes can't they glow the same way?

In European countries, starting from the fourteenth century, all representatives of the cat family were considered servants of the devil and the first companions of witches. These superstitions appeared precisely because people could not answer the questions: Why do cats' eyes glow in the dark?, their pupils are vertical, and she herself is too independent and independent. Black cats were especially persecuted; they were probably not loved because of how quickly they could hide in the dark. Enraged fanatics burned beautiful girls along with cats, thus depleting the gene pool of both in those dark times.

Did you know? In more ancient times, cats were considered protectors, excellent hunters and even deities. In many countries they were indeed considered special; according to pagan beliefs, these animals were messengers of the god Rod, those who were sent to observe life on earth and then convey the information received to the gods. Legends that have survived to this day say that Makosh, the goddess of water, revered by the ancient Slavs, asked the god Rod for someone who could look after people. Rod thought about it, and then created a mustachioed creature that moves between the boundaries of reality and warns the human race about approaching disasters. He gave one cat to each of the gods, and sent several down to multiply and keep human homes.

Why do cats' eyes glow in the dark?

Scientific facts go against ancient superstitions. In addition, it must be said that cats' eyes do not really sparkle at all, since they simply reflect light.

To put it simply, the process of how the brain receives images can be characterized as follows: light reflected from objects around it enters the lens through the pupil, then it is imprinted on the retina, which captures the light and rewrites it into an electrical signal that enters the occipital cortex cerebral hemispheres. When light penetrates the retina, the sparkling of the cat’s eyes, which surprises many, occurs.

Behind the retina there is a group of reflective cells - the tapetum, a specific layer of the choroid, which is divided into two varieties: tapetum lucidum and tapetum nigrum. In each member of the cat family it is expressed differently, and even in its form, depending on a particular breed, the ratio of different varieties of tapetum and their location may differ. Tapetum lucidum in the cat's eye exists in a diamond-shaped or triangular shape and takes up quite a lot of space. Light that penetrates the retina, passes through it, is reflected from the tapetum and again appears on the retina. This makes the signal stronger and the image better quality. For this reason, cats can easily get by with the weak light of the stars and moon at night - their eyeball contains a special amplifier that allows them to see well in the dark. Having noticed eyes glowing brightly in the night, we see precisely the sparkle of reflected light.

Did you know? Such a system for improving vision at night is a magnificent evolutionary acquisition. Not only domestic cats can boast of glowing eyes in the dark: all nocturnal predatory animals have this ability, it’s just that in some it is more developed, and in others it is weaker. Owls, for example, can see about ten times more in the dark better than cats, which is why they are able to notice any movement of prey at a distance of three hundred meters; but during the day they are weak due to the fact that their vision is too sensitive to bright light. The dusky loris, an animal native to Australia, has very large ears and eyes because it catches insects in the dark. He can even hear the movement of the praying mantis.

Red and green

Why do cats' eyes glow in the dark?

When they say about a person that he “sees like a cat,” this is a big stretch, since a cat’s vision is very different from ours. Cats see well in light levels 10 times lower than what we can see in. At the same time, in good lighting, cats are worse at distinguishing details than we are. This is the first feature of cat vision. It seems to be specialized in the perception of dimly lit space. This is why cats prefer shaded rooms where they like to rest and perform their toileting. And, naturally, those of them who like to hunt mice are forced to do this in low light conditions, because their victims lead a twilight and nocturnal lifestyle. But cats, in addition to hunting, also have to make love at night, which we can guess by listening to the heartbreaking screams of March cats at night.

IN choroid, consisting of a network of feeding eyes blood vessels, at the exit point optic nerve there is a layer of cells with crystalline inclusions - a mirror. In the depths of the eyeball (retina) with visual cells - rods and cones. In a cat, as a twilight animal, the retina of the eye is mainly equipped with rods, and only in the central part of the retina, in the area of ​​acute vision, are cones concentrated.

More recently, it was believed that cats do not have color vision at all, but it has now been established that cats are still able to distinguish, although worse than us, several colors. But what they distinguish much better than us are shades gray, up to 25 shades.
This visual feature can be explained by the coloring of their victims.

Watching a cat or kitten running after a ball on a string, it is easy to establish that they react much more acutely to the horizontal movement of the toy. So, a ball that you roll on the floor always causes an active pursuit reaction in a cat, while a ball that you move up and down in front of it, it reacts more sluggishly. This is not only a reflection of her hunting instincts, since mice and voles move only in the horizontal plane, but also the features of vision. It has been established that a cat tracks the horizontal movement of objects in more detail and sharper than the displacement of the same objects in the vertical plane.

Cats have a good view of nearby space, but in the distance the contours of objects look slightly blurred to her. A cat's two eyes are located close to each other and point forward, creating an overlapping field of vision.

Thus, we see that many features of cat vision are in one way or another connected with solving the main life task - obtaining food.