![]() Some owl species have eyes larger than humans. This is false – the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, for example, is one of the many owl species that hunt in broad daylight. People once thought that owls were blind during the day. An owl’s large pupils help it hunt in the dark. At night, the pupil expands to let in lots of light. In the bright glare of a sunny day, the pupil shrinks to block out some of the light. The pupil controls how much light gets into the eye. At the center of the iris is the dark, round pupil. Some European owls have orange eyes.Ī thin tissue, called the iris, covers the front of the eye and gives the eyeball its color. Owl species that live in North America have bright yellow or brown eyes. The magnificent eyes of owls come in three colors. Once an owl has done this, it has pinpointed the location of the sound and is ready to pounce – even if it has not seen its prey. The owl moves its head until the noise reaches both ears at the same time. If an owl hears a mouse rustling, perhaps even below a blanket of snow, the sound may reach one ear before it reaches the other ear. These owls use their uneven ears to judge exactly where sound is coming from. Others have asymmetrical placement, where an ear on one side of the head is located above the one on the other side of the head, which increases their ability to locate sound on a vertical axis. ![]() Some owls have ears located directly across from each other, in symmetrical placement. The facial disc captures and funnels sound into the owl’s ears, just as a TV satellite dish funnels broadcast signals into its antenna. The rings of feathers are called the facial disc. Each slit is a flap of skin, called an ear conch (pronounced konk), which opens into a large ear canal, as shown above.Īn owl opens and closes its ear conches by using muscles beneath the rings of feathers around the owl’s face. Where are an owls’ ears anyway? If you looked deep under the head feathers of an owl, you would discover that it has a slit on each side of its skull.
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