DOSSIER Zintuigen
Universiteit Leiden
That’s all very cute, but compared to some animals you're basically blind and deaf. Across the animal kingdom there are super-senses hidden in animals that can hear, see, smell, touch or taste so well that it’s almost scary. Origin went on a mission to find the best of the best and organised the supersense Olympics. Keep reading to find out who take home the gold medals!
Why mantis shrimps have such an elaborate visual system is not clear. Possible explanations include that it helps them see transparent prey or detect predators. It might also play a part in their mating rituals, which would also explain the fact that the shrimps themselves are brightly coloured.
Sight
These animals have the most advanced visual system on earth
There’s a few animals with pretty good eyesight. Horses, for instance, can see almost everything around them: their field of vision covers 350 degrees. This allows them to see predators from far away. Birds of prey, such as hawks or falcons, can see amazing detail from great distances. Their eyesight is about eight times better than that of a human and they can spot a prey on the ground from a kilometre and a half in the sky! But the true champion of eyesight might be unexpected: it’s the mantis shrimp. These animals, that are also known as Stomatopods, have the most advanced visual system on earth. For starters, their eyes are mounted on stalks and can move independently. They can move up to at least seventy degrees in every direction, allowing them to scan their environment without moving their head. Where humans have four different photoreceptors that allow us to see colours, mantis shrimps have sixteen. This means they can see colours we can’t even imagine. Outside of the human colour range, they can also see ultraviolet light and even distinguish different kinds of polarised light. Each eye is divided into three areas, which can be used separately and simultaneously. That way, a mantis shrimp can see depth with only one eye.
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Hearing
How do you decide what animal has the best hearing? If you look at the largest distance from which an animal can still hear sounds, whales would be certain champions. Their calls can make it across oceans and be heard from thousands of kilometres away. But then again, whales cheat. Sound travels through water much faster than it does through air, so its reach is much larger in sea than on land. How about bats, then? They can hear ultrasonic sounds well beyond the hearing range of humans. Some bat species can hear and produce sounds of up to 120 kilohertz, which they use for echolocation and to detect insects. The highest sound a human can hear is about 20 kHz, and our ability to hear high-pitched sounds diminishes rapidly with age. But no animal, young or old, matches the sonic range of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella). This creepy crawler can hear and produce sounds