How does the Eurasian eagle owl see?
The Eurasian eagle owl (Bubo bubo) is a bird in the order Strigiformes. Its eyes belong to the vision type Owl and night bird.
Measured in this species: field of view and night vision. One measured dial: a value other than colour or sharpness is measured in this species; colour and sharpness are not measured here. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.
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What stands out
- It has one receptor class for colour, so it sees brightness but no hue.
- Its sharpest vision resolves 22.71 cycles per degree: the finest stripe pattern it can tell apart from grey.
- Its eyes cover about 201° around the head, with 46° seen by both eyes at once.
- It stops seeing flicker at 40 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks choppier to it.[19][20]
- Activity pattern: nocturnal.
The six dials
Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.
| Dial | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Colour receptors 1 receptor class: 555 nm (LWS (long)) receptor set of nearest measured relative Bubo virginianus (same genus Bubo) | Estimated | [1][2] |
| Sharpness | Acuity 22.71 cycles per degree median of 2 relatives in genus Bubo: Bubo virginianus, Bubo scandiacus | Estimated | [3][4][5] |
| Field of view | Binocular overlap 46° median of 1 rows (eyes-at-rest rows preferred) | Measured | [6] |
| Total field of view 201° median species-v1 total field of family Strigidae: Strix aluco | Estimated | [7] | |
| Sharp zones (foveas) | Number of foveas 1 median of 48 relatives in class Aves: Branta canadensis, Cardinalis cardinalis, Passerina cyanea, Zenaida macroura, Cyanocitta cristata, Junco hyemalis | Group default | [8][9][10] |
| Fovea type single central fovea (displaced dorso-temporally from retinal centre) | Group default | [8][9][10] | |
| Night vision | Activity pattern nocturnal mode of 7 rows (of 7 rows): cathemeral; nocturnal | Measured (not re-verified) | [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] |
| Rods vs cones rod-dominated nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated | Derived | [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] | |
| Motion (flicker fusion) | Flicker fusion frequency 40 Hz median of 1 relatives in genus Bubo: Bubo virginianus | Estimated | [18] |
Related animals
- Great horned owl same vision type
- Tawny owl same vision type
- Barn owl same vision type
- Little owl same vision type
- Great grey owl same vision type
- Snowy owl same vision type
More birds: all birds with measured vision data.
Sources
- Longcore T. 2023. A compendium of photopigment peak sensitivities and visual spectral response curves of terrestrial wildlife to guide design of outdoor nighttime lighting. Basic Appl Ecol 73:40-50. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2023.09.002. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8432720
- VPOD in-vivo (MSP / single-cell) lambda max compendium, file scp_cleaned.csv, VPOD GitHub (Frazer et al. 2025 bioRxiv 10.1101/2025.08.22.671864). github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db/tree/main/scripts_n_notebooks/vpod_ML_workflows/mine_n_match/data_sources/lmax/vpod
- Caves EM, Brandley NC, Johnsen S (2018) Visual acuity and the evolution of signals. Trends Ecol Evol 33:358-372. Supplementary Tables S1-S3.. doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.03.001
- Caves EM, Fernandez-Juricic E, Kelley LA (2024) Ecological and morphological correlates of visual acuity in birds. J Exp Biol 227(2): jeb246063. Supplementary Table S1.. doi.org/10.1242/jeb.246063
- Potier S, Mitkus M, Kelber A (2020) Visual adaptations of diurnal and nocturnal raptors. Semin Cell Dev Biol 106:156-164. Table 1.. doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2020.05.004
- Potier S, Roulin A, Martin GR, Portugal SJ, Bonhomme V, Bouchet T, de Romans R, Meyrier E, Kelber A. 2023. Binocular field configuration in owls: the role of foraging ecology. Proc R Soc B 290: 20230664. Data figshare.. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0664
- species_v1:Martin 1984
- Moore BA, Tyrrell LP, Pita D, Bininda-Emonds ORP, Fernandez-Juricic E 2017. Does retinal configuration make the head and eyes of foveate birds move? Sci Rep 7: 38406. Appendix 1.. doi.org/10.1038/srep38406
- Potier S, Mitkus M, Bonadonna F, Duriez O, Isard P-F, Dulaurent T, Mentek M, Kelber A 2017. Eye size, fovea, and foraging ecology in accipitriform raptors. Brain Behav Evol 90: 232-242. Supplementary material (Tables S1, S2).. doi.org/10.1159/000479783
- Rodrigues T, Matter MM, Chiodini A, et al. 2026. Foveal vision in fast-flying birds hunting on the wing. bioRxiv 2026.06.05.730304. doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.05.730304
- Anderson SR, Wiens JJ. 2017. Out of the dark: 350 million years of conservatism and evolution in diel activity patterns in vertebrates. Evolution 71:1944-1959. Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.fg700. doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fg700
- Angielczyk KD, Schmitz L 2014. Nocturnality in synapsids predates the origin of mammals by over 100 million years. Proc R Soc B 281: 20141642. Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.1v8kj.. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1642
- Light conditions and the evolution of the visual system in birds (figshare dataset, SupplementaryDataset1). doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22116371.v3
- Choiniere JN, Neenan JM, Schmitz L, Ford DP, Chapelle KEJ, Balanoff AM, Sipla JS, Georgi JA, Walsh SA, Norell MA, Xu X, Clark JM, Benson RBJ. 2021. Evolution of vision and hearing modalities in theropod dinosaurs. Science 372:610-613. doi:10.1126/science.abe7941. Data: https://osf.io/teq73/. doi.org/10.1126/science.abe7941
- Wilman H, Belmaker J, Simpson J, de la Rosa C, Rivadeneira MM, Jetz W. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027. BirdFuncDat.txt. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
- Schmitz & Motani 2011. Nocturnality in dinosaurs inferred from scleral ring and orbit morphology. Science 332:705. Comparative data redeposited in Xing et al. 2020 supplementary information (Zenodo).. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3591994
- Moura et al. 2024. A phylogeny-informed characterisation of global tetrapod traits addresses data gaps and biases. PLoS Biol 22:e3002658. TetrapodTraits v3.0.1.. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22536349
- Lafitte A, Sordello R, Legrand M, Nicolas V, Obein G, Reyjol Y. 2022. A flashing light may not be that flashy: A systematic review on critical fusion frequencies. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0279718. S10 File (CFF database). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279718
- Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
- Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631
Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?