How cats see

Irish Stones

I don't know if this is a subject that could be of interest in this section, the mods are allowed to move or cancel this post if it's the case.

I came across this article on the web where a group of experts in animal ophtalmolgy gave advice to the artist Nickolay Lamm who eventually came out with a series of photos edited to show us how cats see the world.

http://nickolaylamm.com/art-for-clients/what-do-cats-see/

Cats have a wider visual field and a higher sensitivity to low lights, though they don't see the colours like we do.
What are your opinions about it?

muddypaws

Really interesting to see how their vision appears worse than ours in the daylight, but the later shots show how effective their night vision is.

Irish Stones

What is strange and probably untrue to me is that the cats' vision is blurred in many areas of the visual field, so I can't reckon how they recognize their humans from a distance. My cats know me when they see me from the window as I come back home. If their vision was blurred as the photos show, then I could be just a patch of pale colour in a fog of other colours.
I knew that cats are short-sighted, but I don't think they are to that extent.
More, by those photos it seems that they have only a couple of spots of clear vision.

Speaking about vision, my cats seem to be in need of a pair of glasses... they tend not to see the dry food in their bowls...

kupus

No they never see the dry food in their bowl, but they'll spot the piece of cheese you put in your mouth from 20 metres away.

And then make you feel guilty for not giving it to them.

kiffer

They see birds flying around the estate and things moving on the wall that are too small for me to see...

Is it just the movement?

Irish Stones

kiffer wrote: »

They see birds flying around the estate and things moving on the wall that are too small for me to see...

Is it just the movement?

The article says:

They have no fovea, but an “area centralis” that, though has more cones than other areas of the retina, still has more rods than cones. The increase in rods also enhances their “refresh rate”, so that they can pick up movements much faster (very helpful when dealing with small animals that change direction very quickly during a chase). These differences also help them to have great night vision, an excellent ability to pick up and follow quick movements, but at the cost of less vibrant color, with less detailed resolution. Interestingly, this also means that humans have the ability to see very slowly moving objects at speeds 10 times slower than cats (that is to say that we can see very slow things move that would not appear to be moving to a cat).