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| Owls can barely move their eyes. |
| By Bennett Kleinman |
| When you see something utterly shocking, it may feel like you can’t look away. But for owls, the inability to avert one’s eyes is more of a biological restraint than morbid curiosity. Owls can only shift their peepers about 3 degrees in any direction (roughly 1/15th the degree of movement human eyes have), as an owl’s eyes are essentially locked in place. This immobility is due to the owl’s lack of spherical eyeballs, which have a good range of motion and are present in many other animals. Instead, an owl’s eyes are shaped more like rod-shaped tubes, and they’re held firm by bony facial structures called sclerotic rings. Despite the limitation, owls still have a full 360-degree field of vision, as they can easily rotate their necks 270 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees vertically. |