How do hamsters perceive and hear their environment?
Do they even have the ability to see their owners and other animals?
This is a common question among hamster owners since the answers might assist them in providing the greatest care and safety for their pets.
Table of Contents
What Are Hamsters Vision Like?
Hamsters only see in colors green, black, and white.
Beyond a few inches, they have a vision that is inferior to that of a person with 20/400 vision.
A hamster sees objects larger than 3–4 inches as hazy, indistinct blobs.
The absence of color vision in hamsters is explained by the fact that their eyes have 97% rod and 3% cone receptors.
Hamsters have a higher proportion of rods than humans, which helps them see more clearly in dim light.
Other survival senses have improved as a result of this impaired vision.
Owners must be cautious when caring for hamsters because of their near-blindness.
When generating noise near a hamster, one should take into account their acute hearing due to the sensitivity and physical fragility of their ears.
You are less likely to be perplexed or disturbed by a hamster’s behavior when you are aware of its senses.
Our ability to defend them and better comprehend their needs increases as we get a deeper understanding of our animal buddies.
How the Eyes of a Hamster Work
Hamsters see the world using multi-part eyes, much like other mammals do.
You see something when light reaches your eye.
The cornea, a transparent layer covering the eye that lets both visible and ultraviolet light through, is where it initially passes.
After then, light passes through the pupil, a spherical aperture.
By contracting in strong light and expanding in darkness, the pupil controls how much light reaches the eye.
Then it travels through the lens, which partially filters the light and bends it so that focus is possible.
The light then passes through the vitreous body, which has a gel-like consistency and is focused on the retina.
At the back of the eyeball sits a surface called the retina.
It converts the light’s energy into electrical signals, which go via the optic nerve to the brain.
Rods and cones are two types of cells that make up the retina.
Photoreceptors are rods and cones. This implies that they take in light and transform it into signals that are sent to the brain.
These signals subsequently set off bodily functions including waking and sleeping cycles.
The ability to see in dim light is provided by rod cells.
Cones allow for bright-light vision. We utilize them to distinguish colors and forms at various places in space.
Opsins are protein pigments, or photopigments, that are light-sensitive in cones. These are sensitive to various light wavelengths.
Since most animals only have blue and green opsins, they can only perceive these two hues. Red opsin is also present in people.
Rods and cones are present in all animals, albeit they may be present in varying degrees.
Animals that prefer to be active at night typically have more rods than cones.
This group includes hamsters. They can see, indeed, but not in the same way that we do.
Can Hamsters See in the Dark?
Not exactly.
When it is completely dark, they cannot see. Like humans, they need some light for their eyes to be able to distinguish between objects.
Hamsters can distinguish things with the greatest degree of acuity in low-light conditions, such as at dawn and twilight.
There is currently no evidence to support the idea that Syrian hamsters are unique among breeds in this regard.
Hamsters frequently use their other senses because they have weak eyesight.
Hamsters can comprehend their environment with the aid of their hearing, taste, and smell.
In the absence of strong vision, hamsters can use their senses thanks to two adaptations: large teeth and whiskers.
Are Hamsters Colorblind?
Your vision is better and more developed than your hamster’s. Their other senses are so excellent because of this.
They need better hearing and smell to compensate for their low vision.
It might be challenging to comprehend what and how hamsters see. According to studies, hamsters have a monochrome vision.
Every color is perceived as a single color in the case of monochromatic vision.
A separate research, however, revealed that hamsters can perceive some hues of green and blue.
Rod cells make up an astounding 97% of a hamster’s eye.
This indicates that their eyes have limited light sensitivity, giving them either very limited or no color vision.
How Far Can a Hamster See?
Although hamsters can optimize the quantity of light entering their eyes because of their huge eyes compared to the size of their body, does this indicate they can see a great distance?
Oh no…
Like many animals, hamsters are born blind, and as adults, their field of vision is limited to a few inches in front of their noses.
A hamster’s lens is solid, in contrast to human eyes, which may alter the shape and concentrate the light.
This implies that it is unable to concentrate light or alter form too much.
You must be aware of the dangers your hamster confronts on a daily basis because of their poor eyesight in order to make sure they are not put in any potentially hazardous settings.
Your hamster’s erratic behavior is frequently caused mostly by their poor vision.
They may bite as a sort of self-defense or mistaken identification if they can’t distinguish your fingers from food or prospective predators.
Because of this, it’s crucial that you walk slowly, speak gently, and let your hamster make their way to you on their own.
Why Are Hamsters’ Eyesight So Poor?
A hamster’s eyesight somewhat increases at night in order to aid in finding food.
They become nearly entirely blind in broad daylight. Hamsters are nocturnal, underground creatures, which explains why.
In the case of these creatures living in their native, untamed environments, excellent vision is not required.
Instead, they survive by relying on their keen hearing, smell, and touch senses.
How Do Hamsters With Such Weak Vision Survive?
Even though hamsters don’t have the finest eyesight, they compensate by using their other senses.
It is believed that hamsters have a more acute sense of smell than other animals.
To identify food, other hamsters, and their burrows, hamsters utilize their sense of smell. They employ it to identify their owners as well.
Additionally, hamsters have excellent hearing. While you and I cannot hear high frequencies, they can.
Have you ever noticed how your hamster stops, sits still, and starts to smell the air when you make a loud noise?
This is so that hamsters, which are prey animals, won’t mistake loud noises for those of their predators. Your hamster is attempting to understand that.
The hamster’s vibrissae, or whiskers, aid in object detection. The hamster’s muzzle is where these delicate hairs protrude.
A hamster needs its whiskers, as well as its senses of hearing and smell, in order to find food and fend against predators.
The hamsters have an advantage while living with people since they can rely on our senses as well!
They Don’t Rely on Their Sight
More than their eyes, hamsters rely on their other senses. Even if your hamster eventually develops blindness, it won’t significantly affect him.
This is because hamsters rely more on hearing and smelling their environment than they do on seeing what is in front of or around them.
If you have a blind hamster, you’ll find that he has the cage completely memorized and understands where everything is and how to get about.
You might need to move a few objects out of his path that he might run into, such as moving toys (like a see-saw) or bridges.
Apart from that, a blind hamster will be able to locate his food, nest, water bottle, and identify your voice.
He might seem a little spiky, but that’s pretty about the only difference anyone has ever noticed in a hamster that went blind.
Final Thoughts
Hamsters’ eyesight is far less developed than ours.
They don’t see colors well or at all, however, but they do have a sense of night vision that aids in their ability to locate food in the dark.
As prey animals, hamsters rely on their whiskers, hearing, and sense of smell to protect them from predators and other hazards.
Therefore, if your hamster starts sniffing at abrupt noises, it is probably only attempting to determine whether there is any threat to itself or you nearby.
Therefore, even though we would refer to our hamster as being “blind” since it doesn’t see color or anything particularly clearly, this is untrue — they are not at all blind!
It’s just different from how we as humans normally view life.