Good Morning Central Otago

Have you ever wondered why horses see better than us at night? It’s the same reason that at night time, with a spot light, their eyes shine back at you with a yellow-greenish colour!

Horses have a specialised area of the retina. The retina is the structure at the back of the eye which is filled with nerve endings to collect light and information about what your horses see.

The top half of the horses retina has a specialised structure called a Tapetum Lucidum. It lies just behind the retina and reflects any light that comes into the eye, back through the retina again. This gives the nerve endings in the retina, a second chance to catch the light and information it receives.

For this reason, horses have great vision at low light intensities! Under moonlight, horses can see just as well as we see in the daytime