Jumping or climbing animals are an exception on the other side.
*confused flatfish noises*
Submitted 3 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/75c7fd0e-f771-459c-9f2b-1da2611a0b91.jpeg
Comments
Aljernon@lemmy.today 3 months ago
Brahvim@lemmy.kde.social 3 months ago
Nobody gunna complain Blåhaj has an issue?
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Are apes considered predators? I kind of thought they were just neither.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
By far the most dangerous predator on Earth is humans, we eat each other, anything that moves, kill for fun, build machines to do it for us, design what we eat to be easier to kill, and have you dealt with women? We’re a scary bunch.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Right, I know, and that’s because we had better stamina than predators, and then developed intelligent brains. But are apes?
Saapas@piefed.zip 3 months ago
Is this the guy who got his bike stolen
kamen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I see what you did there… and also there.
fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
That’s if sight is your primary sense for hunting / evasion, right?
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Is it actually possible for a fish-like animal to have eyes at the front (i.e. an animal with a hydrodynamic shape that spends all its time underwater)?
I feel like that’s really difficult for evolution to achieve, especially because the mouth has to go somewhere at the front too. I mean, look at where the lights of a high-speed train are placed and their shape.
Intuitively it feels easier to just put the eyes on the side. Plus it feels like there’s a lower risk of damaging them when bumping into something.
drath@lemmy.world 3 months ago
janus2@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
was gonna snark “me before coffee” but tbh this is also me after coffee too
Paradachshund@lemmy.today 3 months ago
I don’t remember what it’s called but I’m pretty sure there is one I saw once and it was kind of terrifying looking.
Hathaway@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
Barreleyes get sorta close. They look up but can look forward too.
zeca@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
Being a predator is not a property, its a relation. X is a predator of Y… but not of Z, and is a prey of V and not of W.
Gladaed@feddit.org 3 months ago
Sharks see with their jaws, though.
Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
It’s not the question if the eyes on the side or in the front, it’s about the capability to be able to focusing on a stereoscopic vision to be able to calculate the distances to the prey or not. Side eyes increase the field of vision, which can be advantageous for fleeing animals, but does not exclude that predators can also use it to strategically locate themselves better in the environment. But it is true that animals with frontal vision are generally predatory.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
There are lots of reasons to have binocular frontal vision. Redundancy, differing info for optic flow, sensitivity, reducing the frontal blind spot, compensating for retinal blind spots, higher frontal resulution, seeing around things, depth perception…
Most of there are good for predators, but predation isn’t the only reason to have them.
flora_explora@beehaw.org 3 months ago
They also have to orient themselves in a truely 3D landscape, unlike terrestrial predators who hunt on basically a 2D plane. Birds of prey (with the exception of owls) also don’t have front-facing eyes, probably for similar reasons (and they’re stereoscopic vision also works a bit different I think with very different points of focus).
Zerush@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
saltesc@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I think that’s specific to mammals. Just off the top of my head…
Invertebrates? No. All out
Fish? No.
Birds? No.
Reptiles? No.
Amphibians? No.
Cattail@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Maybe it doesn’t apply ocean animals. Like they would want to see both above and below for their environment, but I’d also think for predators it would be slightly more front facing
k0e3@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
A lot of non mammals other organs to help them perceive. Even aquatic mammals like whales have echolocation. That’s probably why the front facing rule doesn’t apply universally to all animals.
pjwestin@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Birds? No. Though, even on the side they do often have a tilt toward frontal in a lot of predatory birds. It could be argued…
Birds of prey absolutely have their eyes positioned on the front of their heads. It’s most obvious in owls, since they have the largest eyes and wider faces, but all of them have front-facing eyes for binocular vision.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Typhoon@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Most primates eat fruit or leaves, but have forward facing eyes because they need depth perception for climbing/jumping, not for hunting.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Squirrels have eyes on the sides of their heads and they’re pretty fucking good and climbing and jumping. Next theory …
marzhall@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Invertebrates? No. All out I invite you to meet the awesome [jumping spider(www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDtlvZGmHYk), whose eyes are very especially needed set up to be forward-facing for depth perception for their jumps, and who hunt other spiders, as well as the wolf spider, who are also a hunting (as opposed to web) spider.
In fact, you can use the chart of spider eye layouts to pretty much identify whether you’re looking at a spider who builds webs and waits or a spider who hunts:
a drawing of different spider faces to their names
Anyone with two big forward-facing eyes is probably looking around for their next meal.
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Those are some wild gamepad layouts
KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Had a bunch of wolf spiders in the last shop i worked at as a welder. They have eye shine like cats and alligators. It was always easy to tell the wolf spiders from black widows even behind a dusty welding machine because you can see the little wolf spider eyes looking back at you.
monotremata@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Also crabs. I mean, their eyes are often on stalks and more mobile than mammalian eyes, and they’re compound, so they have a very wide field of view, but they’re still often basically in front, and they do apparently provide depth cues for hunting thanks to this.
www.jneurosci.org/content/38/31/6933
It also occurred to me to look up about dragonflies, and it seems they mostly hunt dorsally (which is a pretty viable option if you’re flying). BUT I found this article about Damselflies, which notes that they rely on binocular overlap and line up their prey in front of them. Which is pretty cool.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Bats also have forward facing eyes I think (correct me on this please!), but most of them aren’t carnivorous. They eat fruits and bugs and stuff.
illi@piefed.social 3 months ago
They eat fruits and bugs and stuff.
Well, if they hunt bugs, they are predators, no?
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 3 months ago
I would assume insects would be evolutionarily similar to other types or prey.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Aye-Ayes and Tarsiers have very forward facing eyes, yet eat mostly gruvs in trees.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 3 months ago
They want your sweater back…
illi@piefed.social 3 months ago
I remember there used to be a goat on some island (now extinct) that didn’t have any predators so it evolved forward facing eyes
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
There’s also evidence that people tried to domesticate them, their hooves were trimmed.
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Besides humans, aren’t most apes not prey animals?
imgcat@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
including humans.
Starski@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
What do you mean by prey animals? Animals that prey on others or are you calling them prey themselves? And just because an animal is a predator doesn’t mean there aren’t larger predators that will kill and eat them. Ultimately most apes are omnivores who eat fruit and berries, along with leaves and other shit, but will eat meat and have been known to prey on animals, yet it’s not their main source of food. They’re not apex predators but they aren’t actively prey.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Another non-predator mammal with front facing eyes: llamas.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Panda
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Pandas as well. Non-predator but clearly front facing eyes.
FeatherConstrictor@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Are llamas’ eyes not side-facing? That’s what it looks like in photos to me
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
whales and dolphins are mammals, and they have eyes on the side. Don’t think anything preys on them (at least for the full-grown ones, pretty sure baby whales are preyed on)
mr_account@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Last time I saw this kind of comment/meme someone pointed out that dragons are usually depicted with eyes on the sides of their head. What hunts them, I wonder
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 3 months ago
Horny donkeys
notsure@fedia.io 3 months ago
...hobbits...
Crashumbc@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The Hobbits just piss them off, then humans have to deal with it…
Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That’s like how in dnd lore the tarrasque, basically the biggest, scariest monster, is always depicted with big spikes on its back. Animals evolve spikes like that to ward off predators. That means something at least used to hunt tarrasques
TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 3 months ago
Actually they develop in its juvenile state when they are vulnerable to more mundane predators but are then retained for sexual selection in adulthood.
There is only one tarrasque in existence, resulting in it taking its sexual frustration out on level 20 adventuring parties and parties that keep making fun of the lore- uh, history- of the world they grew up in.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Adventurers…
redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Bigger dragons.
mech@feddit.org 3 months ago
Yes Sharky?
CAN I PLEASE MOVE? I’M SUFFOCATING!
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Obligate ram breathing is kind of mind-blowing. They have to swim to flow water through their gills because their gills have no muscles to flap like most fish have.
Only a few sharks are obligate ram breathers, though. Many species are able to take breaks from swimming.
Zink@programming.dev 3 months ago
Turtles are kind of in between with their wedge-shaped heads. They need the awareness to hide from predators, but some of them are also predators themselves or they at least snap at fruits and veggies to eat them.
Here’s my tortoise doing his best disappointed-in-you baby yoda:
Image
And here’s the yellow belly slider locking target on to some shrimp.
Image
But it sounds like the rules aren’t as consistent in the water, judging from other comments. Even something like an alligator snapping turtle’s eyes are no further forward than these pics.