How do rabbits see the world? Rabbits can hear well with their long ears, but what about their eyes? Do the Hoppler see the world like we do or completely differently? Here you can find out and understand your darling even better in the future.
Anyone who mumbles so many carrots must have good eyesight, right? – Image: Shutterstock / Nataliia Melnychuk Helms
who so many Mumbling carrots, has to see razor-sharp, doesn’t it? Not quite. the Eyes and rabbits’ eyesight—along with the rest of their senses—are optimized for their survival as prey in the wild. Sharpness is not as important as an all-round view. How rabbits see their surroundings is therefore very different from our human perception.
All-Around Perception: Rabbits have 360-degree vision
Human eyes are located in the front center of the head, which is why we only have limited lateral perception and are virtually blind to the rear. In rabbits, however, the eyes are set wide apart on the sides of the head. This increases the viewing angle enormously, because each eye can see at an angle of about 170 degrees.
Not all rabbits have the same viewing angle. wild rabbit have relatively short fur and very protruding eyes. Therefore, they have the widest viewing angle. However, domestic and pedigree rabbits are often bred in such a way that their faces are narrower and their eyes are less prominent. In addition, long hair or floppy ears further restrict the field of vision.
Blind spot right in front of the face
Despite their all-round vision, rabbits also have a small area they can’t see: right in front of their face, at a wide 10-degree angle. Instead, they perceive everything that is there by smell and touch. That’s why some treats that you put right in front of your darling go unnoticed.
Spatial Vision: Rabbits rarely see in 3D
In order to be able to perceive spatial depth, the observed area must be covered by both eyes. In rabbits, however, the fields of vision of the two eyes only overlap in a range of around 30 degrees – i.e. only a fraction of their total vision.
Because of this, rabbits have trouble judging distances and speeds. What they cannot do with their eyes, they compensate with what is known as parallax: while they move, they shake their heads. The further away an object is, the less it visually moves during the wobble.
Are rabbits color blind? A little bit!
Like humans, rabbits have rods and cones in their eyes. The cones enable color perception. The human eye has receptors for red, green and blue. Rabbits, however, lack the cones for sensing red, so they only see the world in shades of green and blue.
Excellent twilight vision
Colors aren’t that important, but Hopplers need to be able to see well at dusk, since that’s their main time of activity. Therefore, they have many more rods than cones. The rods are responsible for processing the brightness.
In complete darkness, however, they see just as little as humans, since they have no special night vision mechanisms in their eyes. Even in bright sunshine, rabbits don’t see very well. The reason for this is their pupils: They can only move a little and are always wide open. As a result, the long ears are quickly blinded. Albino animals are even more sensitive to light than their peers due to the lack of pigmentation in their eyes.
Rabbits are far-sighted
Spotting enemies early is important for rabbits. Therefore, long-distance vision is more important than what is happening in its immediate vicinity. This is also reflected in rabbits’ sense of sight: they have a slight curvature of the cornea, which makes them farsighted. Objects that are very close are blurry. The mummlers therefore recognize their humans less by their faces, but rather by their smell, voice and the way they move.
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