What Makes Owls Unique? It’s Their Eyeballs!

by Sofia Zapata, age 12

Owls are fascinating creatures. They are known for their big wide eyes, although they don't actually have eyeballs at all.

Instead, owls have sclerotic rings in their eyes. Sclerotic rings are rings of bone found in the eyes of many animals. Human eyes are different from owl eyes because humans don't have sclerotic rings. Owls are unable to roll their eyes; this means they have to turn their entire head to see around them. Owls make up for their lack of eye movement by turning their necks about 270 degrees in both directions, and 90 degrees up and down.

Owls' eyes are gigantic, the eyes alone make up about 3 percent of its entire body. Owls are farsighted, they can't focus on objects that are too close. But to make up for this, the owls' whiskers are used to detect objects that are in close proximity.

Owls have three eyelids, the upper one closes downward when it blinks. The lower one closes upwards when the owl sleeps, and the last one is transparent and serves as a protective membrane to keep objects out of the owl's eye during flight.

In conclusion, not many creatures are like owls. These unique creatures don’t have eyeballs, but they are interesting and beautiful animals.

[Sources: National Geographic ; Wisconsin DNR ]