How they see
How does a moth see the world?
Colour vision by starlight
The night-flying hawkmoth does something our eyes cannot even attempt: it sees colour by starlight. Special light-pooling eyes gather the faint glow of a dim garden and pull real colour from it, so a moth can pick out the right bloom to feed from on the darkest night. Ultraviolet is part of its palette; deep red is largely missing.
See through their eyes
Human ≈ 60 cpd (20/10)
How sharp is a moth's vision?
Its eyes resolve about 0.13 cycles per degree (20/4600 (est.)), while a human reaches around 60 cpd (20/10). Its field of view spans about 340°.
How does a moth see a human?
Its eyes resolve about 0.13 cycles per degree against your 60, so a face has to be roughly 462 times closer for it to pick out the detail you do. Your outline and your movement read clearly; your expression does not.
Colour comparison
How each colour shifts when seen through this animal's eyes, using the same colour model as the app. Tones a screen can't emit (such as ultraviolet) are shown as an approximation.
What colours can a moth see?
Colour vision at starlight intensities; red-poor, UV-rich.
Photoreceptors
UV–blue–green vision with light-pooling superposition eyes
Cone peak sensitivities
- UV350 nm
- Blue440 nm
- Green525 nm
How does a moth see in the dark?
Outstanding — colour vision in near-darkness.
How does a moth's vision compare to a human's?
A moth's detail, around 20/4600, is a small fraction of your 20/20. Even in the dark it sees colour where you see none at all, and it perceives ultraviolet light closed to your eyes.
What is special about a moth's vision?
- Colour vision by starlight
- Sees ultraviolet
- Superposition eyes pool dim light
What the research shows
Nocturnal colour vision was demonstrated in the elephant hawkmoth by Kelber, Balkenius & Warrant (2002). In behavioural tests the moths discriminated flower colours at starlight intensities, light in which humans and honeybees are effectively colour-blind, and the same work identified three photoreceptor classes peaking near 350, 440 and 525 nm: ultraviolet, blue and green, with no dedicated red receptor. Balkenius & Kelber (2004) later showed colour constancy, meaning the moths recognise a colour as the same under different illumination, which suggests their colour sense is more than a crude brightness trick.
The cost of this sensitivity is detail. Superposition eyes gather light from many facets for each receptor, and the nervous system adds further summation over space and time, which blurs the image and slows it. Stöckl, O'Carroll & Warrant (2017) recorded from motion-sensitive neurons in the elephant hawkmoth, Deilephila elpenor, and found their response halved at about 0.13 cpd, against about 0.26 cpd in the day-flying hummingbird hawkmoth, Macroglossum. The page's 0.13 cpd, roughly 20/4600, is an estimate taken from those neural recordings rather than a behavioural test. A display cannot convey the core finding: the moth sees colour at starlight levels, while any screen image is bright enough for human colour vision. Its ultraviolet channel cannot be displayed either.
Guides: Animals that see ultraviolet · Which animal has the best eyesight? · All guides
Scientific sources
- Kelber, Balkenius & Warrant (2002)
- Warrant (2017)
- Stöckl, O'Carroll & Warrant (2017)
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