Eyes Of An Elephant

Close up look of a wild African elephant's eye

The largest land mammal on earth, the elephant, actually has a relatively moderate visual capability compared to other herbivorous animals. Despite this nearsightedness, it has nevertheless been able to survive in the wild thanks to its excellent hearing and acute sense of smell that adequately compensates for their limited range of sight.

Elephants that are found in the wild have been noticed to grow some extremely long upper eyelashes. This quite likely comes in handy to prevent excessive dust, dirt and numerous insects from continuously irritating the eyes, which is not uncommon in the harsh savanna environment. Their nictitating membrane helps to clean and lubricate their eyes.

These large mammals also have limited, but advantageous peripheral vision simply because each eye is located on the side of their head, which naturally gives them a wider uniocular angle. However, due to the unique location of both eyes on the head, these uniocular angles do overlap at the front which then provides the elephant with some binocular vision ( this is where both eyes are used when located in front of the face).

Comments

Lions Mating Up Close In Kenya

This lion and lioness are mating really close to the road.

The Unique Looking Guitar Fish

Guitar Fish resting on the sea bed One of the most interesting characteristics about the guitar fish is its unique body shape. It seemingly looks like a cross between a shark and a ray - with its flattened ray like head yet it has a long shark like body with dorsal fins - but this fish is actually a classification of its own and has about 50 subspecies. The guitar fish prefers to remain tranquil on the sea bed, partly covering itself with sand to camouflage itself for any unsuspecting prey such as crabs or small fish that may come past it. Reaching sizes of approximately two meters in length, they are quite docile so can easily be approached by underwater photographers.

The Roughness Of A Lions Tongue

A lions tongue has numerous tiny spines called papillae Pet lovers with a domestic cat at home will relate to this story quite well, as they would have had their hands or fingers licked by their cat's tongue at some point or another. A lion’s tongue is no less different in design to that of a house cats, with the exception that its sheer size and heaviness would make a lions tongue as rough and harsh as sandpaper! But why is the lions tongue so rough and how is this beneficial? The reason for its roughness is that the surface of the lions tongue is covered in many tiny spines called papillae, which are further divided into 3 types namely; Filiform, Fungiform and Vallate papillae. The cats filiform papillae which is located on the tongues dorsal surface, is the main reason for the roughness, and these can also be compared to barbs since they face backwards in the direction of the throat. Having a barbed tongue is beneficial to the lion for a number of reasons. I...

WILD KENYA SAFARIS - Kenya Safaris, Diani Beach Safaris, Mombasa Safaris and more

Search This Blog