'Icelandic horses, goats, eyes and more eyes' - by K J S Chatrath

I am lucky to have visited Iceland twice, once in 2012 and the second time in 2016. And yes, I would love to go there again, if I could.

One of the many aspects of this country that fascinated me were its horses. It is said that Icelandic horses are the free-est animals in the world. Normally horses do not lie down but the Icelandic horses  do- since they are not afraid of any one troubling them.

 

A 'dabang' Icelandic horse. 

During my second trip I discovered the strange eyes of the goats there. In fact all goats have such unusual pupils but I had never noticed them.

 

 

                                                                       An Icelandic goat

Goats eyes have horizontal, rectangular pupils.  This did seem bizarre at first notice as one is used to seeing the round pupils of human eyes. Getting interested in the subject I discovered that pupils of cat’s eyes have vertical slits.  In a new study* vision scientist   Martin Banks has found that the shape of an animal’s pupils is a clue to its place in the food chain. This study discovered that depending on the light, the shape of a domestic cat’s pupil changes from vertical slit to almost fully round  muscles on either side of the cat’s pupil open the slit wide or cause it to narrow.

 

                                                                      Cat's eyes

 Incidentally any semi-precious gem reflecting a band of light that shifts position as the gem is turned is called 'cat's eye'!


 But the ways of nature continue puzzling us. This is what the pupils in the eyes of a Geckos (Gekkota) look like.

And here is pupil of somewhat awe inspiring eye of a crocodile.

In contr5ast the eyes and pupils of a dog look - so normal!

                                                           The famous Afghan Girl photo

And now to human eyes. Afghan Girl is a 1984 photographic portrait of Sharbat Gula  taken by photojournalist Steve McCurry.  It appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic magazine. The image is of an adolescent girl with green eyes in a red headscarf looking intensely at the camera.

               What better way to end this than by sharing the photo of beautiful eyes a Nordic girl?


(With inputs from https://www.livescience.com/62513-photos-amazing-animal-eyes.html ;https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/animals/why-do-cats-have-slit-shaped-eyes/ and internet)


Comments

  1. Naresh London28 December 2021 at 13:47

    Quite a fascinating subject. Never really think about rectangular, vertical slits. I wonder if this is to protect retinas of different creatures.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Naresh London28 December 2021 at 13:55

    Icelandic horses running around lying down with no fear of humans fascinating. Let's remember horses, camels take time to get up from sit down posture. Scandinavians got a bigger share of common sense when God created humans 🙂

    ReplyDelete

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