![]() ![]() ![]() They thus can illuminate their own path like a pair of headlights on a car. Behind your cat's eyes are specialized cells, called the tapetum lucidum, that reflect light outwards - much like light hitting a mirror. These cells then produce impulses that travel to the brain where they are deciphered into the images we see.Ĭats have six to eight times more rod cells than we do, which is another reason they can see so much better in darker conditions.īut cat eyes have one more trick that helps them to see so well in the dark - and it's the reason why cat eyes glow.Įver thought your cat's eyes looked so luminous that they were reflective? That's because they are. Rods pick up light while cones interpret colors. There are two kinds of photoreceptors: rods and cones. Therefore, cats can see much better in the dark than we can.Īll animal eyes have cells in the retina called photoreceptors that process the light our pupils let in and synthesize it into a map for the brain to interpret as an image. Compare this fact to human pupils, which can only dilate 15 times. In fact, a cat's pupils can dilate enough to cover almost all of the iris and can expand up to 135 times its size. Cat pupils are thin-slitted and vertical and they can expand much wider than our pupils can when light is scarce. It's why they can see so well in the dark. All animals' pupils do this to some extent.īut cat's eyes can do this much, much better than ours can. When light is plentiful, the pupil shrinks. The pupil controls how much light passes through the eye and it operates pretty much just like the aperture of a camera. ![]() Etremblay/Flickr You've likely wondered why cat eyes glow in the dark, and it has to do with a strange layer of cells behind their retinas. ![]()
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