This one is particularly powerful.
Copying in a previous comment if mine from an older post:
It’s a fancy word! I’m sure we’re all well familiar with it already, we just didn’t know the name for it.
Here’s where it lives:
And here it is where you’ve most likely seen it in action:
The tapetum lucidum contributes to the superior night vision of some animals. Many of these animals are nocturnal, especially carnivores, while others are deep-sea animals. Similar adaptations occur in some species of spiders. Haplorhine primates, including humans, are diurnal and lack a tapetum lucidum. (Wiki)
When I walk home after work I cross a couple fields and a small wooded area. I’ve noticed that different animal shine back different colours. Cats are that bluish light green, nightjars are bright reddish orange, roe deer bright green, wolf spiders twinkle like stars in the ground, there’s some tiny moths that shine pale orange, and what surprised me the most was the common genet shining very bright almost white.
You’ve given me something to pay more attention to! I feel this is familiar, but I have never given it much thought before.
Next chance you get, go outside at night and hold a flashlight up to your forehead, right between your eyes, pointing out, like you are a unicorn. Look around in the grass. Spiders’ eyes will reflect the light right back at you. You might be surprised how many there are per unit area.
I have done that once or twice, but I should do it again! The yard can be so alive! 😄
I started to pay attention to the colours after the genet because it felt so unusual.
Are the genets big? I have never seen one, so I don’t really have a mental image of one.
I always remember this post of a Milky Owl that caught a genet and it seemed pretty sizeable, though without having seen either animal, I wasn’t really sure.
I’ve never been too close to one, the one in the picture felt safe enough up on that tree that it stayed there looking back at me. It was about the size on a large cat, more svelte but longer.
Thank you, that’s very helpful!
Our “small” wild cat in the the US is the bobcat (Lynx rufus.)
The adult bobcat is 47.5–125 cm (18.7–49.2 in) long from the head to the base of its distinctive stubby tail, averaging 82.7 cm (32.6 in); the tail is 9 to 20 cm (3.5 to 7.9 in) long. Its “bobbed” appearance gives the species its name. An adult stands about 30 to 60 cm (12 to 24 in) at the shoulders.
Adult males can range in weight from 6.4–18.3 kg (14–40 lb), with an average of 9.6 kg (21 lb); females at 4–15.3 kg (8.8–33.7 lb), with an average of 6.8 kg (15 lb). The largest bobcat accurately measured on record weighed 22.2 kg (49 lb), although unverified reports have them reaching 27 kg (60 lb). Furthermore, a June 20, 2012, report of a New Hampshire roadkill specimen listed the animal’s weight at 27 kg (60 lb).
My brain hears “wild cat” and just registers “sabre tooth cat of indeterminate size.” 😅
It sound like the genet is the same length, but nowhere near the mass.
At around 2kg, that’s the upper limit of the prey range for the Great Horned Owl, our strongest owl, so now I have a really good perspective on the genet and the Milky Eagle Owl.
Those eyes have seen some shit, man
