Did you know that where the eyes reside on the face can tell whether one is a predator or prey?
Welcome to this week's edition of Something Wild. I?m Rosemary Conroy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
In my last Something Wild, I discussed how we see light and color and how that affects the way we perceive the world. It also turns out, however, that where your eyes are located also has a great impact on your daily living.
Most predators, for example, have their eyes front and center on their heads. This allows us, (for we are in this class), to have what is known as binocular vision. That helps you to judge the distance between your eyes and hands and whatever object you?d like to grab ? or in the case of a wolf or hawk, the squirrel it would like to catch for dinner.
The prey, as you can imagine, need to be able to detect these hungry predators, and preferably from more than one direction at a time. And thanks to having eyes perched on the sides of their heads, many of them ? like deer, horses, birds, rodents, and rabbits ? to name a few, can do just that.
A mallard duck, for example, can see nearly 320 degrees ? all at the same time. This would allow a hen to watch over her ducklings swimming nearby while also keeping an eye peeled for hawks swooping down from above.
Most of these prey species don?t have particularly sharp vision but their eyes are very attuned to movement and contrast. For example, herpetologists have figured out that a frog cannot see something if is not moving. The poor animal could be in a pile of houseflies but starve to death if they all somehow remained still.
But when the fly does buzz by, the frog will not only catch it, but can also use its eyeballs to help push the food down its gullet.
Now there?s a trick we predators have yet to master!
Something Wild is a joint production of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, NH Audubon and NHPR.
For Something Wild, I?m Rosemary Conroy.
