Cats are technically color blind – but that doesn’t mean they can’t see color. Popular belief would lead you to believe that cats can only see white, gray, and black. Truth is they live a life a little bit more colorful than that, but not by much.
Feline vision is similar to the one a colorblind human has, at least when it comes to shade of colors. This means cats can see shades of blue just fine and can handle a little bit of green. On the other hand, red, pink, and purple might be a little confusing for them.
The color red and similar variants can prove problematic for a cat to see. Red might look like green for a cat. Purple looks bluer rather than purple as well.
Are cats color blind like dogs?
Cats and dogs are both color blind but not in the same way. A cat can see different shades of blue, yellow, and green. A dog has a hard time seeing anything other than blue and yellow. They both enjoy the color gray, though!
When it comes to color, there’s no doubt both cats and dogs have room for improvement. Then again, their vision has only colorblindness in common. Cats and dogs see the world in entirely different ways!
For example, dogs have 20/75 vision, while cats have 20/200 – that’s a big difference! Humans are still better at 20/20. Birds steal the show at 20/5, though.
What colors do cats see?
Cats can see blue, most of yellow, and a little bit of green. Everything else could be somewhat of a blur for them. They can see a big part of the colors that we do, but they don’t see them in the same way.
Even though cats do predominantly see things on a grayish scale, there’s a little bit of every color in their view. The colors they get to see aren’t crystal clear; they get to see them as a human with blurry vision would.
Some scientists believe cats can only see gray and blue – and that would be a big change in how we consider feline color perception. There’s not a lot of proof behind that statement, though. As far as we know, cats enjoy a little bit of everything but red.
How do cats see?
Felines don’t see the world as we do. They see things with a little less color, a little more blurry, and on a wider scale. Humans have 20/20 vision, cats have 20/100. We can see on a 180scale, cats have a little bit more view at 200
Simply put, cats seem to be colorblind and nearsighted. That seems like a poor deal, vision-wise – but keep in mind cats have no use for color or seeing far away. They need to deal with the immediate to hunt their prey and survive from predators.
There’s a tradeoff for cats, though. Even though they don’t see as good as we do during the day, they can definitely handle themselves in the dark.