Visual ranges vary widely among animals due to differences in anatomy, habitat, and behavior. The visual ranges vary depending on the species even within the same animal. In this post, I share the distance up to which some selected animals are known to see clearly.
Just for context, humans with good vision can clearly see up to about 20 feet for detailed objects. But up to 3 miles/15,840 feet for large objects, and even 10 miles/52800 feet for really large objects like mountains, and skyscrapers. Although humans can see very far exceptionally large objects under clear conditions, the level of details dimishes greatly with distance.
While cats and dogs have about the same visual range, cats have higher detailed vision than dogs for objects upclose.
The medium also matters such as underwater, or on land, as does the weather conditions. Crocodiles have slightly better vision range on land than in water.
Contrary to common belief, bears possess better visual range than Moose, Bison on land, and sharks or whales even in water. While bears have decent eyesight, their world is primarily perceived through their sense of smell, which is far superior than their eyesight. And perhaps crucially, bears are very good at detecting movement. Bears also possess excellent night vision.
Owls can see objects and prey from a distance of about 100 feet at night, and their vision is optimized to detect even the slightest movements in the dark.
Use Zoom in your browser or your device screen to enlarge the charts.
All numbers are close approximations. When there are ranges, the Mean values are used as rounded whole numbers. For all charts, X-axis has been formatted to Logarithmic scale. Data labels in feet (and miles when needed).
Whether you’re a wildlife photographer, observer, or just trying to get a selfie with a wild animal, it may pay to keep their visual ranges in mind 😉 Happy exploring!
