Can Cats See in the Dark?

Just like with humans, if you put a cat in an entirely dark room with no light source, they won’t be able to see in the dark either. The reason why it can appear that cats can see in the dark is because they are able to see in much more low light environments which can sometimes make us jump to that conclusion.

Truth be told, very few environments are lacking entirely on light and cats can pick up on a very small amount of light to be able to find their way around.

Whilst they can’t necessarily see in the dark, they can see better in low light environments, like around the house at night or outdoors at night. With the continuous sources of light from the moon, streetlights, windows and appliances, its no wonder why we think they can see in complete darkness.

While many cats might favour hunting at night, they do not have night vision or any kind of special ability to see at night. Nighttime is just a good time to allow them to hide themselves away from their prey as they’re often able to see better than them. As hunters, they have evolved to have very sensitive eyesight that can make the most out of the smallest amount of light to see exactly where they’re going.

To help them see in the dark, a cat’s eye is built a little differently from ours to help them see in the low light conditions. Feline owners may see their eyes change throughout the day or in the low light settings and that’s no coincidence.

Cats' eyes have slit like pupils like many predators which makes their eyes perfectly built for hunting in low light. Their pupils will dilate and become super wide, practically filling their entire eye to allow as much light in as possible.

Being able to open nice and wide means they can take in more information about their surroundings, helping to find their prey much easier.  

A cat’s slit shaped pupils allow them to have greater control over how much light is allowed to hit their retina. Being able to narrow into tiny slits means they can focus on movement during the day and night. they’re able to dilate extra wide to take in as much light from the environment to help them to see.

These physiological traits have evolved over the years as the cats with a better ability to see at night and track movement would have made for better hunters so over time, these would have been genetically stronger than those without the trait.

Cats are near sighted which can really help when hunting and trying to follow the slightest movements of their prey. While it may seem like our cats can see far away, they rely on their acute hearing and sense of smell to track prey from a distance.

They can head far away little squeaks of rodents of the scent of one burrowing under the surface of the ground. Their senses are all perfectly aligned to allow them to be the best hunters, so not having very good eyesight to see at a distance doesn’t seem to hinder them in the slightest. It’s more important that they can see very well up close to monitor the movement of prey than it is to see them at a distance.

Cats' eyes are very different to our own. When light enters the eye, it’s the job of photoreceptors within the eye to tell us what we’re seeing. There are different types of photoreceptors, that do different jobs like detecting light or picking up on different colour hues. Cats have more rod type cells in their eyes which are the photoreceptors that are responsible for detecting the contrast between light and dark. This is how our feline friends can see so well at night, their vision is finely tuned to be able to pick up on subtle changes in light.

The eye also contains cone cells to collect information as well which will distinguish between colours. They have fewer of these which means their world doesn’t look as rich and colourful as ours. They can see yellows and blues but lacking in some cone receptors means they aren’t able to detect reds and greens very well.

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