Does anyone know if cats can see infrared? Thr reason I ask is that my cat always knows where my hot water bottle is (my house is cold at night), without having to prod around the bed looking for the warm patch. She also seems to know which radiators are on and which ones aren't. So I think that cats can see heat. Does anyone know anything about it? :?: [size=12:829ee1da8d][/size:829ee1da8d]
No I don't think so, they can see in the dark of course though. I think their whiskers will pick up the heat pretty easily.
Whiskers? It's an interesting suggestion though- thanks! :lol: Perhaps night vision has something to do with infrared, because on natural history documentaries they use infrared lights to film at night, but presumably the animals can't see them. Oh I don't know. Perhaps my cat is just a genius. (Although most evidence points to the contrary.)
Maybe your hot water bottle smells differently when warm? (Or it just does smell, and your cat assumes it might be warm, or you wouldn't put it in your bed.) As far as I know, cats have extremely good light reception, but no infrared. (Come to think of it, my old heaters do smell differently when hot. Not bad, just... differently. Like freshly ironed linnen does, too.) And feeling heat on a longer distance than humans can have something to do with an extremely good tactile sense, too. That's something we humans don't often use, but could train; for example, we could, with some training, tell from the feeling in our face wether the sun is out or not and where it is standing, but we don't use our tactile sense for that because we mostly rely on our eyes. Maybe your cat is combining all that.
Also, not really to do with cats, wildlife films are not usually shot using infra red cameras because the picture would look a bit naf for viewing. They usually use starlight cameras at night, which basically do the same thing as the eyes of cats etc, gathering in all the available light no matter how small and compensating. You can, if you like, blind a cameraman/woman by striking a match if they are filming with a starlight camera.
True! Infrared would make the documentations look slightly... pyschedelic. (Why is that a recurring motif in my posts lately?)
Thank you, both of you- I think the tactile sense bit may be it! [size=12:917d035ed4][/size:917d035ed4]
You know, I can't find anything that details the cat's visual spectrum, but I do know that bees see into the ultraviolet.
Brad was instructed about the birds and the bees but only recalls the bees part. You really need to find out about the birds to have a full education. I'll try to look into this this weekend. It interests me very much and I have quite a few books regarding insects at my parent's house. I know that some snakes, especially vipers, "see" in an infrared type way. It may not be infrared, but rather a heat sensory perception. Their eyesight is pretty poor, but they can detect even the slightest change in temperature.
Yes, those snakes have a 'Jacob's organ' just below their eyes. The only other animal to have this organ is an elephant, in its trunk. Isn't that weird?
[size=12:9bf439538b][/size:9bf439538b]Very wierd - elephants also "hear" through their feet, by detecting vibrations in the ground. The ultraviolet thing is true for butterflies aswell, but I don't know about all insects, maybe just the ones that need to get into the middle of flowers, some of which have ultraviolet lines leading down into the middle of the flower. (You learn all sorts of useful things from children's television!!) :lol:
