How do cats see in the dark?

We humans live quite an amazing life. But this life comes with its shortcomings – for example, we are always curious about everything. We always love to find out what it’s like to be someone else. Each one of us has at least thought about it once in our life. Funnily enough, one might even think how animals live and how we would do if we were in their paws. We do wonder a lot of things. Things like, how do cats live? How do they see in dark or when the lights are turned off?

Well, it is human nature to ask curious questions. And, we are quite capable of finding all the answers behind our mysteries, thanks to our brains. As for cats, they are brilliant. They know how to find their way despite any hurdle. Indeed, cats are considered to be one of the most genius animal species.

If we look deeper in the subject of how cats survive, we will learn a lot of interesting facts. They have a strong sense of smell; they carry around their activities with the help of the smell signal. They also sleep 13 to 14 hours a day in order to conserve their energy. In addition to that, cats have a powerful sense of hearing. They can hear five times better than a human adult.

But if you wonder how they see in the dark, then the truth is, cats cannot actually see when there is no light. This is a misconception that most of us believe. They can only see in partial darkness and that too quite clearly.

If a cat were to be placed in a totally dark room, it would see no better than we humans would. However, out in the open, there are multiple sources of light. Even at night, it is seldom totally dark. The moon, street-lamps, or even lights from the inside of the houses all help to provide some degree of illumination at night. In poor light conditions, a cat’s eye is able to multiply the effect of the light.

Wondering how? It does so using a special layer of cells at the back of the retina in cats’ eyes. It is this layer that causes cats’ eyes to shine with a green glow that we sometimes see if we direct light on their eyes in the dark.