How do cats see, exactly?

Cats are mysterious creatures. If you love cats, you've probably wondered what their world looks like. You may never know what it feels like to be perched on a windowsill or moving around quietly, but thanks to artist Nickolay Lamm, you can find out how cats see. In 2013, this cat-loving artist released a series of images showing a side-by-side comparison of a simulated human and cat vision using photo editing techniques.The first thing you'll notice is that images from the cat's perspective are much less saturated. Cats mainly see washed out colors and they have trouble telling reds and pinks apart: their vision is mostly made up of shades of blue and green.

They also have much wider peripheral vision than humans, but are very nearsighted. Specifically, cats' field of vision is 20 degrees wider, but humans can see five times farther. The vision of cats is blurry, like that of a person who needs glasses. For example, they would therefore have difficulty in distinguishing buildings from the window of an apartment. Images from the cat's point of view are therefore much larger than those from the human point of view, but distant objects appear blurrier.

How do cats use their other senses to navigate the dark?

Like most night hunters, cats can't always trust their eyes to get around in the dark. This is where their other senses come into play. A cat's five senses are extremely sensitive and allow it to create a full picture of its surroundings, even when it's dark. Here's how cats' other four senses guide them in the dark. The smell, Hearing, Touch and Taste.

Cat night vision vs human vision

Cats, like dogs, have far more rods than cones, unlike humans. Cats see better than humans in the dark, have a wider field of vision, but distinguish colors less well and see less well from afar. To be able to perceive the same details as a human from 20m away, cats must approach 2 to 4 meters on average.

Can cats see in the dark?

Since cats are adorable and generally playful, we sometimes forget that they are fearsome miniature version predators who excel at night hunting. Anyone who's ever been woken up by their cat frantically running around the house in the early morning knows that felines like to hunt in the dark. So it's understandable why people think cats have the magical power of night vision, but how well do cats really see in the dark?

Can cats see without light?

No. Despite their mystical allure, cats unfortunately don't have any supernatural abilities – at least not that we know of. Cats' eyes work the same way as those of other mammals and need a certain level of light to function. However, cats see much better in low light conditions than humans. Cat eyes only need one-sixth of the ambient light needed by human eyes. Cats are crepuscular, which means they are especially active at dusk and dawn. They therefore generally hunt when there is little light, but it is not completely dark. So while cats don't have the infrared night vision of a snake, they still have eyes designed to see well in the dark. They can also rely on their other heightened senses when their eyesight isn't enough.

How do cats see in the dark?

If you've ever looked closely at a cat's eyes, you've noticed that they look very different from your own. For one, cats' pupils are just small slits most of the time. This is because during the day, cats need to limit the amount of light that gets into their sensitive eyes. Once it starts to get dark, their pupils dilate and become very round, which makes them all the cuter.

However, what makes cats so adorable is also one of the many things that make them excellent night hunters. Combined with curved corneas and a large field of vision, dilated pupils allow cats to see well at night. On the other hand, cats see less clearly when their pupils are dilated. A cat's pupil can grow 135 to 300 times its size, while a human's increases only 15 times. Cats can see better in the dark than humans.

They also have a choroidal mat, a reflective layer in the eye that helps increase the amount of light captured through reflection. This layer explains why cats' eyes sometimes seem to glow. Thanks to this feature, cats' eyes can capture more than 50% of ambient light. It is thought that cats may even be able to pick up ultraviolet light.