Cats are animals that have unique and very special eyes. Although they see everything blurry during the day, as if someone had lost their glasses, at dusk they know where they are and how to move without stumbling. But why is this so?
Well, we have the answer in his hunting instinct. Prey that it would hunt in the wild are more vulnerable when the sun goes down, so the night vision of cats is very, very different from that of humans.
In low light conditions the human eye needs a few seconds to adapt and see "something", but when it is total darkness we cannot see anything at all without the help of night vision goggles or an infrared camera. Unlike the cat, we are diurnal animals, so our night vision has not changed much since we began our evolution.
If we look at a cat, we will quickly realize that its eyes are different from ours. Feline pupils are elliptical in shape and oriented vertically, which makes their eyes more open. In doing so, capture a greater amount of light. But this is not all.
Their eyes contain a membrane called Tapetum lucidum.. It is a tissue that is found in the back of the eyeballs and that is responsible for reflecting light rays so that they can reach the retina. This retina, being made up of more rods (they absorb light) than cones (they absorb colors), is designed to see in dark conditions. This explains why these felines they do not distinguish well other colors than blue or violet tones.
Thanks to all these qualities, the eyes of cats are able to see up to 8 times better than humans when it starts to get dark. Interesting, don't you think?