11/21/2023 0 Comments Are lions nocturnal hunters![]() ![]() Lions’ eyes – like ours – contain rods and cones: photoreceptors in the retina that are responsible for colour vision (cones) and low light vision (rods). If there was literally no light, they wouldn’t be able to see either, just like us, but their powers come from their ability to assimilate even the faintest starlight or glow through the clouds, and create a resolvable image from that. The commonly thrown around statistic is that lions are able to see 8 times better than us in the dark. No, we’re talking the stygian black of a cloudy night with no moon when you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face. And not the darkness shortly after sunset with a slight pink tinge in the western sky. ![]() Since we’ve just established that sight is the most important sense in a hunt and evasion scenario, it’s logical that the best conditions would be ones in which their sight is favoured over the prey’s.Īnd that, quite simply, is darkness. It’s literally life-and-death.įor lions then, the key to hunting success lies in the conditions being heavily skewed in their favour. Dodging obstacles that will hinder their flight, handbrake turning past other members of a pride… it’s all vision based, as responses have to be instant. This is the same for a leopard or a cheetah or a wild dog.Īnd on the other side of the equation, the prey are also using their sense of sight to escape the lions, or whatever may be pursuing them. Sure, they might become aware of its presence by hearing or smelling it, but the final rush is done on sight. they hone in on their prey using vision, coordinating their attack based on where they see their prey moving. We could end it there, but we should probably go into the discussion a little deeper. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |