Cats have big round eyes and can see their prey even in the dark.

So can cats' eyes distinguish colors? How is the world in their eyes different from ours?

Some people believe that cats, like dogs, are colorblind and can only see the world in black, white, and gray in their eyes. This is a misunderstanding, studies have shown that the eyes of dogs are also able to distinguish between blue, purple, yellow, and a few other shades. Cats, of course, are also not colorblind, and they can distinguish between blue, green, purple, and yellow.

In the twentieth century, it was thought that the world of cats was only gray until the 1960s when scientists began to doubt this claim. After further testing, it was discovered that cats can see some colors. While cats are not able to see the world in color like humans, they do have superb night vision. The human eye can capture light receptors called photoreceptors.

There are two types of photoreceptors, Cone Cell and Rod Cell. Cone Cells are bright vision organs, mainly responsible for visual activities under bright conditions, and can discern both light intensity and color, with high visual sensitivity, able to discern visual details. Rod Cells are dark vision organs, responsible for night vision, including photosensitive pigments that can initiate the dark vision process, but the rod cells are not involved in the differentiation of colors.

The cat's retina has many rod cells, and the ratio of rod cells to optic cones in cats is 25:1, compared to 4:1 in humans, making cats' vision more sensitive than humans in the dark. A cat's pupil is oval and will contract faster and be larger than a human's round pupil.

In the dark, the cat's pupil can even dilate up to 90% of the surface of the eye, and only a weak light is enough for them to catch their prey.

At the back of the cat's retina, there is a "reflector", the Tapetum, which will reflect the light that passes through the rod cells in the opposite direction and re-enter the rod cells so that the cat can see clearly in very low light. When a cat's eyes are exposed to light in the dark, we will see bright reflections in the cat's eyes, which is the reason for the Tapetum.

Cats also have cone cells, so they are also able to distinguish colors, except that cats can only distinguish purple, blue, green, and yellow. For the colors red, orange, and brown, cats see black to gray scale. The colors that cats can see will not be very bright colors, blue and green seem to be the most intense colors that cats can sense.