Why do big animals have big eyes?
Large land animals – let’s use elephants and horses as examples – invariably have large eyes. Rhinos have relatively large eyes but extremely poor vision. Horses don’t see especially well in the dark. Conversely, many smaller creatures with much smaller eyes – let’s use an eagles and cats as examples of day and night vision – have extremely acute vision.
Here’s the question: why have large animals evolved large eyes?
Many of the answers are resorting to relative size compared to body size… of course an elephant’s eye is small compared to its body. The question is: why is an elephant’s eye bigger than an eagle’s?
Many animals have evolved eyes that are proportional to their body size so that other animals don’t make fun of them for the way they look.
Some exceptions are animals with big teeth, sharp claws or opposable thumbs and access to firearms.
Night vision cat (#1)
