My wife asked me a question about deer tonight while we were driving down the road that I have never really given a lot of thought toward.

She asked me if deer can see very well at night in the darkness. I am 51 years old, have deer hunted since I was a teenager and I really did not know how to answer her question about deer seeing in the dark.

After doing some thinking about it, here are a few of my muddled thoughts I'd like to share.

First of all, let me say that as a Christian I believe wholeheartedly in the reality of creation. I believe God created everything. The earth, the heavens, all the critters and of course, man.

I also believe that man is the crown jewel of God's creation and God made us superior to all the animals.

So, if I am superior and above the whitetail deer in the order of creation and I can't see at night in the darkness, then how can a deer see at night in the darkness?

Seriously, can they see good in total darkness or do they rely on their other senses to guide them as well?

I know I'll probably get lots of "opinions" on this question and that's okay. I'd really like to hear some concrete facts from someone like BSK, Matt Brock, Steve D. or some of the other biologists who visit here.

I can't get this off my mind now!

Deer see differently than we do. From what I've read they see well at night. If there's a little moon out they see even better....no different than me and you. Probably one of the main reasons they move at night during season around a full moon.

Walking in to my stands before dark, I have run many a deer off. I don't know for sure how well they can see, but by they way some of them have run in darkness, I would say they can see just as well at night as they can in the day. I have heard them break and run what sounds to be full speed and never heard them crash and burn. IMO they have no problem seeing in the dark. I have no scientific evidence for ya. Just experience in the woods.

most animals that have glowing eyes can see very well at night

Use to when we dog hunted they was always somebody's dogs that
would get thru the standers and run on well into the night.
They would have to be able to see well at night to run that
fast.

Google tapetum lucidum to understand why they see well at night.

Eyes have rods and cones in them. We(humans) have more cones than rods, therefore we see colors better. Deer have more rods than cones, therefore their nocturnal vision is better than ours. I hope this helps.

Rods and cones is the answer as I recall from Biology. More rods less light required. More cones see color and more light required.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html

Leave it to women to ask us something we can't answer!! Lol

Deer see perfectly well even on a black, moonless night. Their eyes are built specifically for two things: 1) night vision; and 2) the ability to detect movement. Their eyes are also uniquely built to produce extremely sharp vision over a wide band along the horizon, unlike humans who only have sharp vision at the center of what we are looking at.

Several aspects of their eyes produce these abilities. They have very large pupils, which lets much more light into their eyes than a human's eye, allowing more light to be processed in low-light conditions (like a starlight scope). In addition, they have no UV filter in their eyes like humans do. UV filters protect the eyes from UV damage, but deer are such short-lived creatures that UV damage is not a problem (unlike humans that have long lifespans). With the UV filters, more light makes it into a deer's eye (although, without the filter, a deer's daylight vision is not as crisp as a human's).

The two types of light receptors in eyes are rods and cones. Rods are sensative to low light intensity and are also responsible for detecting movement. Cones require more light, but are color sensative. So basically, rods help animals see in low light and identify movement, while cones see color. Humans have a high density of cones near the fovea (center-point of our vision at the back of the eyeball) and an increasing density of rods away from the fovea (which is why we can more easily see faint light sources and detect movement in our peripheral vision). Deer have an exceptionally high density of rods in their fovea, allowing them to see very well in low light conditions and detect even the slightest movement. And as previously mentioned, although we have a high density of cones right at the fovea, which gives us our clearest vision at the central point of our vision, deer have a high density of rods in a horizontal band all across the back of the eye, producing a very wide "stripe" of sharp vision left and right of the centerpoint.

Deer, like most other nocturnal animals, have a tapetum lucidum, which is a reflective layer at the back of the eye, behind the rods and cones. With human eyes, that do not have a tapetum lucidum, light coming into the eye passes through the layer hold the rods and cones, providing the chance for each to be triggered and produce an image in the brain. However, animals that have this refective tapetum lucidum reflect the light back forwards through the layer of rods and cones, giving these receptors a second chance to be triggered by the light, greatly increasing vision in low light conditions, and producing what we call "night vision".

Great post!! Thanks

I have noticed this too. This is why I wait until I can see before walking in.

I've noticed this year that they see orange very well.

BSK, could you address the issue of rods/cones and colors?

Red and shades of red (including orange) aren't as noticeable to deer and animals with 'reflective eyes" due to the colors' wavelength, as opposed to blue and shades of blue which have different wavelengths.

Is that right, or the strong theory?

Cone receptors primary transmit color information to our brains, but there are different types of cones that are sensative to different ranges of light wavelengths (and "color" is simply a wavelength of light, with blues being shorter wavelengths and reds being longer wavelengths). Humans have three different types of cones in their eyes sensative to three different ranges of wavelengths. On the other hand, deer have only two different types of cones in their eyes, and one of these is very sensative to the shorter wavelengths. In fact, this short-wavelength cone may be so sensative to shorter wavelengths that they may be able to see well into the ultraviolet range (wavelengths of light too short for humans to see). The second cone deer have in their eyes peaks in sensativity in the range of the color yellow, but sensativity falls off fairly dramatically into what we humans consider orange and especially red (because deer only have dichromatic vision, they probably do not see the color red the way we do; they may see it as only a dark yellow). With our trichromatic vision, and with a cone sensitive to long wavelength red light, we humans see quite well up into the far reaches of the color red, and some people can see slightly into what is considered infra-red (too long of a wavelength for most people to see).

Another aspect of cone receptors to consider is their density in an eye. We humans, as do many primarily daylight predators, have a high density of cones in our eyes. This gives us exceptional color vision. However, most nocturnal animals, especially prey animals that move at night, often have a low density of cones in their eyes. They rely far more on a high density of rods, as they need to see movement for survival. Deer have a very high density of rods but a low density of cones. This combination provides them with some color vision, but their survival mechanisms are driven much more by movement detection than color perception.

Thanks. That's what I remember hearing and reading ... that blaze orange doesn't "give away" a hunter due to the color like we see it. It's the hunter's movement, most likely.

Quite often, I'll see the erroneous comment that deer are color-blind, hence hunter orange can't be seen by deer. This is not correct. Deer see color although most likely not as well as we do (or exactly the same way we do, considering they have dichromatic instead of trichromatic vision). However, the important question is, how do deer react to different colors, and how much avoidance behavior is associated with color compared to movement? What color something is appears to play much, MUCH less role in deer avoidance than whether or not that "something" moves.

Ive always felt like during "twilight" or "gray light" when the suns just getting started to change from dark to light deer dont see as well. I may be wrong but it always seems you get way closer on one than broad daylight or dark. I rarely go in to hunt and sit in the dark. I always wait till its just barely light enough for ME to see without a flash light. Ive walked right up on deer staring me down trying to figure out what I was doing this.

I think you are correct TC, I noticed years ago that they don't seem to pick up movement as well at grey light. Maybe their eyes adjust slower to the change from daylight to dark.