Could one of you guys please explain to me WHY wouldn't a predator benefit from a larger field of view? a larger fov would give a larger sight area from which to detect movement and thus have a better chance of catching prey
>>5172997Depth perception>field of view
>>5172997They only have the 2 eyes everyone else does, and those eyes have the same limited field of view everyone else does. You can't just magically evolve a 3rd eye on your back or give the eyes a wider fov so you have to compromise on either field of view or depth perception in favor of the other, depending on which you need more.
>>5172997Predators relying on solving point A to point B problems, which relies on knowing exactly where the prey is and how to strike them.Prey animals rely on maximizing their visual range without caring about landing exactly on top of something.It's why humans are surprisingly good at catching flies out of the air, while flies are good at evasion.
rule of cool
>>5172997Both usually ended up having dolby 5.1surround sound ears.
>>5172997why would you need a wide field of view, if you can just look from farther away and lock in on one target? in what reality would a predator need to look left and right at the same time in order to catch prey in front of them? because remember, they can just turn their head
>>5173019>>5173020lmao more
>>5173100
>>5172997What would an animal's vision be like if it had 2 front eyes and 2 side eyes?
>>5172998tsmt fpbp /thread
>>5173197
>>5173197imo ideal is 2 side eyes 1 front. You don't need the 4th eye.
>>5173186There's actually a multi-level explanation for this.First, sharks (and most aquatic life, in fact) are not "apex predators" in a deep time ecological context. They've spent most of their time being mid level predators that occasionally get an opportunity to get fuckhuge. So investing in binocular vision never gets anywhere because effectively five minutes ago you were a medium sized predator that needed to keep a watch for larger predators, and five minutes from now there is a good chance you get caught up in the next mass extinction, or need to get smaller to stay alive, or someone else grows even bigger than you do and now you're not an apex predator again. This logic applies to armored fish, sharks, marine reptiles, and marine mammals.The above also applies across an individual's lifespan. Take Megalodon for example. When it is an adult, sure. It hunts whales. Apex predator. But as a juvenile, it's a low to medium rank predator getting snacked on.Additionally, sharks don't need binocular vision in the first place - their alternative is electro-magnetic sensory organs. So it can always see what's directly in front of its face, the eyes are there to get prey in range of its keener senses. The version for marine mammals is echolocation, and there may (may) have been some version in predatory marine reptiles. I'm not saying they had electromagnetic receptors or echolocation, I'm saying it would track if they did.
>>5173020>>5173019quite unsettling
>>5173249Yes because you're prey and they look like predators now.
>>5173251I think it's more uncanny valley from skull shape.Like cats and dogs aren't viewed as 'unsettling' because their skulls are designed for it. A deer with forward facing eyes is unsettling because it is a mismatch with everything else about it.
>>5173258>I think it's more uncanny valley from skull shapeENTER
>>5173259>a familiar object has an unfamiliar detail>"WOW, IT'S SO SCARY NOW!"Add horizontal facing eyes to a human and suddenly it looks creepy. You can get into philosophizing about "wow, the human is now cattle o algo", but in reality it's just uncanny valley.
>>5173242well theres also the fact that vision under water is much shorter than in air, its like 200ft, theres no reason to develop really advanced eyes when you can only see so far, its better to develop other senses than can be used for distance like smell
>>5173242But middle tier terrestrial mammalian predators are also subject to inter and intraguild predation, and almost all of them have forward facing eyes? Isn’t a likelier explanation that aquatic animals have to be aware of threats from below, above, and to the sides (whereas terrestrial predators are more limited to a 2D plane) and thus benefit from a wider field of view? Like terrestrial predators are subject to the same evolutionary pressures (extinction, bigger predators, or shrinking resource pools)
>>5173263Middle tier predators are able to alter their behavior instead to avoid predation, and have other resources to fall back on.Like cats for example invest in hearing (their ears are on a swivel) and are semi-nocturnal. They're also extremely cautious, climb, and small. Their binocular vision evolved because their prey are small rodents/lizards and that requires precision hand-eye coordination.Size is also a big limitation on land. While the Dinosaurs, for example, did have megafauna predators (because their prey was fuckhuge as well), there are almost no large apex predators among mammals comparable to their prey. The biggest land predator on Earth right now is the Polar Bear, and that's arguably an outlier because it is connected to the aquatic ecosystem rather than because it is on land.Underwater, size is only really limited by how much food you can consume. Whales get huge, sharks get huge. On land, size is inherently limited by physics. Dinosaurs can get fuckhuge thanks to their bone structure, mammals are limited because their bones are too heavy, so predators are always mid-size and have different strategies.Just look at Dinosaurs. While many are capable of binocular vision, they never fully went away from horizontal vision. Because they inherently had to hedge their bets, especially during their juvenile phase.
>>5173260do it
>>5173186The "prey have eyes on the side, predators facing forward" is more of a rule of thumb than a true biological lawFor your typical land predator it's important to judge distances so forward facing eyes are important, while for your typical land prey like a grazer having eyes on the side is good so you can look around you even when your head is down grazingBut eyes aren't the only structure predators use to hunt. Sharks use smell and electroreception (many species even close their eyes when they bite to protect them from damage). Dolphins use echolocation which lets them hunt in dark murky waters, etc.
