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Research Article
How fast can raptors see?
Simon Potier, Margaux Lieuvin, Michael Pfaff, Almut Kelber
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb209031 doi: 10.1242/jeb.209031 Published 2 January 2020
Simon Potier
Lund Vision Group, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 35, Lund S-22362, Sweden
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  • For correspondence: sim.potier@gmail.com
Margaux Lieuvin
Lund Vision Group, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 35, Lund S-22362, Sweden
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Michael Pfaff
Lund Vision Group, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 35, Lund S-22362, Sweden
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Almut Kelber
Lund Vision Group, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 35, Lund S-22362, Sweden
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ABSTRACT

Birds, and especially raptors, are highly visual animals. Some of them have the highest spatial resolving power known in the animal kingdom, allowing prey detection at distance. While many raptors visually track fast-moving and manoeuvrable prey, requiring high temporal resolution, this aspect of their visual system has never been studied before. In this study, we estimated how fast raptors can see, by measuring the flicker fusion frequency of three species with different lifestyles. We found that flicker fusion frequency differed among species, being at least 129 Hz in the peregrine falcon, Falco peregrinus, 102 Hz in the saker falcon, Falco cherrug, and 81 Hz in the Harris's hawk, Parabuteo unicinctus. We suggest a potential link between fast vision and hunting strategy, with high temporal resolution in the fast-flying falcons that chase fast-moving, manoeuvrable prey and a lower resolution in the Harris's hawk, which flies more slowly and targets slower prey.

FOOTNOTES

  • Competing interests

    The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

  • Author contributions

    Conceptualization: S.P., M.P., A.K.; Methodology: S.P., M.P., A.K.; Software: M.P.; Validation: S.P., A.K.; Formal analysis: S.P.; Data curation: S.P., M.L.; Writing - original draft: S.P.; Writing - review & editing: S.P., M.P., A.K.; Supervision: S.P., A.K.; Funding acquisition: S.P., A.K.

  • Funding

    This study was financially support by the Vetenskapsrådet (2016-03298), the Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse (Ultimate Vision) and Stiftelsen MB.

  • Supplementary information

    Supplementary information available online at http://jeb.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.209031.supplemental

  • Received June 25, 2019.
  • Accepted November 26, 2019.
  • © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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Keywords

  • Falcon
  • Flicker fusion frequency
  • Hawk
  • Raptor
  • Temporal resolution
  • Vision

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Research Article
How fast can raptors see?
Simon Potier, Margaux Lieuvin, Michael Pfaff, Almut Kelber
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb209031 doi: 10.1242/jeb.209031 Published 2 January 2020
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Research Article
How fast can raptors see?
Simon Potier, Margaux Lieuvin, Michael Pfaff, Almut Kelber
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb209031 doi: 10.1242/jeb.209031 Published 2 January 2020

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