The Three "Blind" Rats

(eyesight)

Have you ever heard of the story, “The Three Blind Mice”?

Rats are also generally “blind” with a really poor eyesight and they are color blind. They have limited perception due to their eyes being on the side of their head. Their depth of focus is from 7 centimeters to infinity and humans perceive this as blurry (The Rat’s Eyes). Very bright light can actually damage a rat’s eyes. In an experiment, rats were subjected to a specific amount of light. Those who were subjected to 800 lux sustained an irreversible loss of photoreceptors (Penn et al., 1989). This is one of the reasons why rats live in dark places and hidden away from light. To help them “see”, their whiskers also play a huge role.

Using their whiskers, they are able to detect the tactile features of their environment such as edge, shape, etc (Gugig et al., 2020). Depending on their whisker length/size, they are able to detect more. According to the paper, “The differential whiskers’ biomechanical properties in which length, thickness, and shape are critical suggests the possibility for a parallel transduction of edges’ location, shape, and texture through independent sensory channels” (Gugig et al., 2020). The morphology is harder to figure out due to neural complications. The length and thickness of the whiskers were proven to be able to detect “where” and “what” information. The shape of the whiskers helps the mechanoreceptors in the follicle by affecting the forces and moments at the vibrissal base(Gugig et al., 2020).