Being that many deer impacts happen at night, I believe I read a long while ago, that their delay in response is because the headlights temporarily blind them since they’re in the dark and suddenly are looking right into light. That period of freezing is them waiting for their eyes to adjust so they can decide on the action to take.
Ooooo lights
Submitted 10 months ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a76d835f-b212-4561-a7fe-4c551cef57e6.jpeg
Comments
Veedem@lemmy.world 10 months ago
kattenluik@feddit.nl 10 months ago
I don’t blame them, ever walked when it was dark out? Headlights are blinding and I’d freeze too.
AnarchistsForDemocracy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
The lights blind them, that’s why. Deer have very sensitive eyes, they can see infrared.
cryostars@lemmyf.uk 10 months ago
Yeah but they do the same shit when it’s broad daylight / no headlights
kilgore_trout@feddit.it 10 months ago
I don’t know if you have ever encountered deers on the road in daylight, but they usually jump away.
thedarkfly@feddit.nl 10 months ago
It’s actually a very reasonable behavior if cars were normal predators: wait for the last moment before jumping out of the way so that the predator has to do a 180° and you’ve already left.
Kase@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It would be really nice if they’d actually jump away tho :(
mrfriki@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You hear that Mr. Anderson?.. That is the sound of inevitability…
Turun@feddit.de 10 months ago
Humans when they see a vaguely humanoid shape in the dark: your upper picture
Humans when they are actively destroying the very basis of their existence, causing large, currently inhabited areas, to be uninhabitable in a few decades: this is fine meme, photoshopped to see the rain forest burning and cities flooding.
Rakonat@lemmy.world 10 months ago
They are just giant rodents.
Heisenburner@lemmy.world 10 months ago
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 10 months ago
God is watching–atching-atching God is watching-atching-atching
camr_on@lemmy.world 10 months ago
BEWARE
aluminium@lemmy.world 10 months ago
A successful hunt is a auccessful hunt
ButtCheekOnAStick@lemmy.world 10 months ago
87 mph in american, btw.
Pharmacokinetics@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“There was a time where they cared nothing for General Motors when their only experience of humanity was a Volkswagen golf 1974 coming at them down a steel corridor.” -Gman
nicknonya@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Humans when they hear a gunshot vs Humans when Great Beast Gltheth arises from the Deep Slumber 😂🤣😂😂
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 10 months ago
To be fair on the deer, no natural predator is going to be chasing them at that kind of speed, so their instincts have no reason to be adapted to understanding objects moving that fast
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Same for primates but we still jump out of the way. Stupid fuckin artiodactyla.
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 10 months ago
Maybe, but freeze is one of the reactions along with fight and flight.
herrvogel@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Nah dude, that don’t make no sense. Do animals only ever run from predators? Do they not have an instinct to avoid colliding with objects? Do they simply let 2 tons of steel smash into them just because it doesn’t look like anything they know that would want to eat them?
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Nonsense. Deer, including wild deer, live in parts of the world where that threat exists.
Adaptation being beneficial for survival is about what IS, not only what’s natural. As far as reasons go, survival is kind of a big one for “instincts to be adapted”.
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 10 months ago
Sure, but evolution takes a long time and cars have been a common enough threat to potentially cause selection pressure for what, a century or so maybe?