Animal Eyes - Windows To The Soul

Eyes can reveal hundreds of stories and emotions, here is a selection of 34 different animal eyes; what are they? See how many animals you correctly identify. Many people still believe and cite that “the eyes are the window to your soul” and it seems to be true for many of our emotional states.  Wide-open eyes can communicate our fear or surprise, whilst squinting can display anger, hatred or a need to visit the optician.  Day-dreamy eyes were often believed to portray love and affection and of course the drowsy eyes when sleep beckons. Naturally, animals are no different and their emotional state can often seem recognizable and obvious to us. The day-dreamy gaze of the lemur, the fearfully alertness of a lookout meerkat or the intensely focused stare of a hungry big cat are all too obvious.

Interesting eye facts:

Domestic cats are generally nocturnal and can open their pupils super-wide to benefit from the smallest amounts of light. At brighter times the pupil can revert down to a thin vertical slits if necessary. The large cats such as lions and tigers have human-like circular pupils.

Animals with a horizontal slit pupil, such as some sheep, deer and goats benefit from an expanded panoramic view, which helps early detection of predators, even when eating with their head down. The eyeball rotates when they lower their head keeping the pupil line parallel with the ground.

Snakes have two sets of eyes – one set used to see, and the other to detect heat and movement.  They also don’t have eyelids, just a thin membrane covering the eye.

Pigeons are known to have extraordinary vision and can see millions of different hues, and have better colour vision than most animals on earth.

Eyes on horses and zebras point sideways, giving them amazing peripheral vision, to the point of almost being able to see behind them, but it also means they have a blind spot right in front of their noses.