ROME: Ever wondered how humans made it to the top of the food chain, or near enough? The answer is in our eyes.
Scientists have discovered that eye shape can reveal whether a species is predator or prey.
A study found humans became successful hunters because our eyes have circular pupils, as opposed to the elongated horizontal ones of plant-eating animals such as sheep.
It said circular pupils – also possessed by birds – provide good all-round vision and are seen in species that chase down their prey.
Animals with vertical elongated pupils such as cats are also hunters – but tend to wait in the sidelines and ambush their prey.
Species with horizontal pupils including sheep, goats and horses are prey, the study said – as the shape of their eyes allows a wider field of vision to keep a lookout for approaching predators.
The analysis of 214 land animals was published in the journal Science Advances.
Researcher Professor Gordon Love, of Durham University, said: ‘We looked at the visual benefits of different pupil orientation and found a strong relationship between this and how animals feed – in short whether they are the hunter or the prey.’
The study builds upon findings by the late Gordon Walls, a US professor of optometry who published The Vertebrate Eye and Its Adaptive Radiation in 1942.
