How Many Eyes Does A Horse Have?

I was out tending to the horses the other day when suddenly my son asked me what I thought was a very strange question.

He had been locked in a staring contest with one of my mares for a few minutes when he suddenly asked me ‘Dad, how many eyes does a horse have?’

I was a bit surprised by the question but I’m always willing to indulge his curiosity in whatever form he takes, so I gave him the obvious answer, but then went away to do some more research about horse eyes.

So, how many eyes does a horse have?

A horse has two eyes. Horses’ eyes are among the largest of all land mammals, and they have fantastic vision by many metrics as a result of this. Horses can see better in the dark than we can, they can distinguish fine detail and have a 350-degree range of vision.

So, horses may only have two eyes like most of us mammals, but they have some of the best vision of animals of their kind.

Let’s look further into this question, what horses can see.

Can horses see in 360 degrees?

Horses cannot quite see in a full range of 360 degrees, but they are close.

Their full range of vision is 350 degrees, as I mentioned.

This is only 10 degrees from having a full range of vision in every direction, so it gives you a good idea of the range of view horses have.

Compare this to our own measly 45-degree view.

This is one of the most important things for an animal like a horse.

In the wild, horses are prey to many animals, and so the ability to be able to keep a constant watch on your surroundings is essential.

For us, our eyes are in the front because our ancestors were endurance hunters.

We would chase prey down over many miles, sometimes.

We needed to be able to see what was in front of us.

For horses, having a wide field of view, as well as the safety in numbers of a herd, gives them the best protection against predators.

Obviously, a full 360 degree view would leave them with no blind spot, but it’s very difficult for evolution to achieve this.

But what about the dimensions?

Often, I’ve heard the question of whether horses can only see in two dimensions.

Do horses see in 2d?

Horses do have blind spots, behind them and in front of their faces.

Horses can’t see things that are directly in front of them.

However, they do not have two-dimensional vision.

As far as I know, such a thing would not really be possible.

Horses need to understand their environment in three dimensions, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to effectively navigate it.

I don’t think any creature would truly see in only 2 dimensions unless they were a very simple organism.

Any complex creature the size of a horse would always understand the world in three dimensions.

Do horses see in color?

Horses are far from totally color blind, but they do have trouble with many colors we can more easily see.

They have keen eyes for blue and yellow colors, and can distinguish them very easily.

Horses do have difficulty separating red from green, in much the same way as humans who experience red/green color blindness.

So, horses don’t have the same field of color view that we do, but they can distinguish some colors.

Any red that they saw would likely appear as a shade of grey.

Do horses see us bigger?

One effect of the fact that horses’ eyes are so huge—as I said, among the largest proportionate to their body of any land mammal—is that everything in their view is blown up in size.

Their retina is similarly oversized as their actual eyeball, meaning that everything they see is magnified in view.

Objects up close to a horse may look up to 50% larger than they would to you.

Again, this is a desirable trait for animals attempting to spot predators from afar.

Their visual acuity is slightly lower than ours, but because they have these oversized retinas, they do not need to be able to distinguish detail as well as we can.

Thus, a horse’s large eyeball magnifies the environment around them in order that they can more easily pick out predators hiding in the grasses.

Horses have really special eyes, then.

Their big, bulbous eyes sitting on the sides of their heads give them excellent vision of their surroundings, allowing herds to scan for predators and be aware of their environment.

Despite what you might think they have great color vision and can see in the same three dimensions that we can.

Horses may only have two eyes, but they make fantastic use of them.