What can bunnies see?

[jmc0164]

Does anyone know what kind of eyesight bunnieshave. Do they have good depth perception? While Iam watching t.v. in my room...I let my bunny run around on mybed...he/she hasn't tried jumping off yet, not even off of thecouch. I think my bunny is about 2 1/2 - 3 monthsold. Also, my bunny has starting doing something likedigging...even when it is on the bed...is this normal? Thanksagain...I am sure I will be asking more questions in the VERY nearfuture! Joann

 

[CorkysMom]

Yep, the digging is very normal....don't plan for that to go away anytime soon.

As for the eyesight, I honestly don't know...but I just adopted a 3year old bunny and had her on my bed last nite and she would go to theedge and peek over, but never would jump...

 

[cirrustwi]

In general, animals with 1 color eye (hamsters,rats, ferrets) have poor eyesight. Animals with a discernibleiris (the colored part) have better eyesight. The belief isthat colorful animals, especially those who use coloration as a sexdeterminer (fish, birds, reptiles) have good color perception.

As for the digging, my buns do that all the time, wherever theyare. Sampson, my 11 wk flemish, jumps off my bed.He goes to the edge and looks over and then jumps down. Iwish he wouldn't, but he does. My other buns jump on top ofthings and the jump down. Sage is really bad about coming outthe top of his cage and jumping down (It's probably 2.5 maybe 3 feet)

Jen

 

[naturestee]

I've seen diagrams in books that show a rabbit'srange of vision. They have a little trouble seeing what is right infront of their noses. This is because of their eyes being on the sidesof their heads. Aside from that, they can see almost all the wayaround. I forget about depth perception, but I think it can be a littleoff sometimes because of their tendancy to look at things through oneeye. There are always depth cues like shadows, but technically two eyesare needed to perceive depth.

 

[Kricket]

I've been told bunnies have 2-D vision.

 

[cirrustwi]

Kricket wrote:

I've been told bunnies have 2-D vision.

I'm not exactly what this means, but in my mind, wouldn't this meanthat they would have no depth perception at all. Isn't 2-Dlike what we see on the TV screen? The world would seem veryflat. We all know this can't be true, or they would have someserious problems taking treats from us or navigating at all.My friend's tortoise has depth perception problems, and feeding her isinteresting. LOL

I honestly could be way off on this, maybe someone could explain to me what 2-D vision is if I am.

Jen

 

[jmc0164]

I found a website that explains 2d vision just to let you know...thanks for answering my question

Normally, your eyes see the same view from slightly different angles.The brain matches the nearly identical views and fills in the missingpieces between them. The resulting image you "see" is a 3D stereopicture. You see it in width, height, and depth.

Without stereovision, you miss out on full depth dimension, so yourworld looks flatter than it does to someone with perfect eye alignment.While people with strabismus lack certain aspects of depth perception,people with misaligned eyes are still able to judge distances. Theywill have a difficult time seeing 3D, however.

Depth perception is not based on binocularity alone. Other factorsbecome more important to people with stereoblindness, such asperspective (knowing the size of objects and interpreting the distancebased on that size), interposition (overlapping), and fogging (distantitems lack clarity) and lighting cues.

 

[Buck Jones]

jmc0164 wrote:

Does anyone know what kind of eyesight bunnies have. Do they have good depth perception?....

A most excellent synopsis of rabbit vision that I've seen referenced in other forums, as well as this one, is http://www.wisconsinhrs.org/Articles/What%20Do%20Rabbits%20See.htm

If you are sincerely interested in the question(s), this chapter of HRS has provided a lot of the answers.

Buck

 

[Carolyn]

Buck Jones wrote:

jmc0164 wrote:

Does anyoneknow what kind of eyesight bunnies have. Do they have gooddepth perception?....

A most excellent synopsis of rabbit vision that I've seen referenced inother forums, as well as this one, ishttp://www.wisconsinhrs.org/Articles/What%20Do%20Rabbits%20See.htm

If you are sincerely interested in the question(s), this chapter of HRS has provided a lot of the answers.

Buck

-Carolyn