H U M A N E Y E
The eye senses light and passes along this information
to the brain. The mind's visual cortex receives these
impulses and constructs from them your view of reality.
The mind relies on prior experience to fill in gaps that
may occur in transmission. It also collaborates with the
emotional center of the mind to provide editorial guidance.
Stumbling upon a rotting carcass covered in maggots
provides a splendid opportunity to respond with a
gagging sense of revulsion.
B A L D E A G L E
The eagle's high eye resolution enables it to detect
a rabbit from two miles away. Its eye has five times
the light detecting sensors found in the human eye.
The trade-off is that the eagle's world view is mostly
grey shaded monochromatic. Their eyes are packed
with light and motion sensitive rods, leaving almost
no room for the eye's color-responding cones.
S U M A T R A N T I G E R
The black and white nocturnal vision of the
Sumatran Tiger enables it to ambush wild boar,
deer and monkey in the dim light of the rainforest
as well as the dark of night. You cannot see it
but it definitely has its eyes on you.
W H A L E
The left eye of the whale has an entirely different
watery view of the world from its opposite on the right.
They see most poorly in every direction, except for
in front. They have no view of the direction they are
headed, explaining one reason why whales are known
to run into boats, buoys and fishing nets. This applies
mostly to the plankton eating baleen whales, such as
the blue whale and gray whale.
Predatory toothed whales use bat-like echolocation
to chase down their prey.
C O Y O T E
The eyes of a coyote are best suited for hunting in
the fullest of night and at dusk. But their noses and
their ears play the more important role in the life of
this predator. Their highly sensitive nose is best used
for tracking prey while their directional ears quickly
detect the slightest movement and the precise
direction from which it came.
B A T
Bats are not blind. They have eyes of varying ability.
Eye vision shows a bat its relationship with the horizon
and a heads up on large obstacles. Echolocation
is fine-tuned, providing a detailed map of the space
around it, in which to navigate and to hunt prey.
Fruit bats fly during the day and identify fruit with the
aid of color. Most have no capacity for echolocation.
Life forms generally don't waste scarce resources
on providing traits they don't need.
* * * * *
OVER EASY
