# Which animal has the best these three senses: Sight, Hearing and Smell? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 11, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210 "2005-01-11T14:39:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/1 "2005-01-11T14:39:15Z")
Pretty simple. I was thinking dog, but I don’t know about the sight thing. Hawk, but I’m not sure about their hearing. Etc. Anyone have any insight to this? ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/2 "2005-01-11T14:49:21Z")
I would say any of the feline group. Including Lions, tigers, servals and house cats. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/3 "2005-01-11T15:27:53Z")
I wasn’t under the impression that cats have very good smell. I suppose that would go for the entire feline group. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/4 "2005-01-11T15:35:51Z")
I was under the impression cats had very poor vision. I know their vision is worse than a dogs and dogs have poorer eyesight than humans. Cats do have excellent low light vision (better than humans and dogs) but that just means a dark room is not as dark to them as it is to us. They still have poorer resolution. So perhaps you need to better define what excellent vision entails. Full color vision, low light vision, high resolution vision? I also thought dogs had a better sense of smell than a cat (not that cats don’t have an excellent sense of smell…just in comparison). Thinking on it more it would surprise me if a cat had better hearing too but I honestly do not know. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/5 "2005-01-11T15:40:18Z")
More info: > [@](#): > > Dogs have cones that are receptive at 429 and 555 nm and are dichromats. All evidence suggests that the dog is dichromat with vision similar to a human who is red-green color blind… Cats are weak trichromats. Feline cones peak at 450, 500 and 555 nm. They live in a world of fuzzy pastels > > Dogs and cats appear to respond to the blue and yellow short-wave length colors the best, but appear to have trouble with green and red. Both are also rod-dominant animals. As rods do not function in daylight these animals are dependent on their few cones for spatial and temporal visual resolution, which probably means that their blue and yellow visual world is a fuzzy blue and yellow world. What appears red to us is simply dark to the dog and cat, and a part of the green spectrum is indistinguishable from white. Colors that would appear very rich to us are more pastel-like to the cat. The cat sees a green, grassy lawn as a whitish lawn, and a green rose-bush as a whitish bush with dark flowers. > > _\_ > > Acuity is 30 cycles per degree (cpd) for humans, 18 cpd for horses, 12 cpd for dogs and 6 cpd for cats. Acuity in dogs is 0.4 times that of people, 0.67 times that of horses, and 2 times that of cats. Acuity in cats is 0.2 times that of people, 0.33 times that of horses, and 0.5 times that of dogs. If normal human vision is 20/20, then that of the dog is 20/50, the horse 20/33, and that of the cat is 20/100. > > SOURCE: [Vision In Dogs, Horses, and Cats](http://www.animaleyecare.com/for.htm#Vision%20In%20Dogs,%20Horses,%20and%20Cats) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/6 "2005-01-11T15:43:26Z")
If you’re looking for the animal with the best average acuity of all three senses, it’s probably going to be between dog and cat. Choosing between them is going to be difficult, I think. Offhand, I would guess that dogs have a better sense of smell, while cats may have better hearing. I am not sure by what margin each one might exceed the other in the respective senses. Although both have good visual acuity, they don’t have much in the way of color vision. Falcons have much better vision than either, I think, but have a very poor sense of smell, and I doubt that their hearing is exceptional. Turvey vultures have very good vision and a good sense of smell, but again hearing may not be at the level of a dog or a cat. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/7 "2005-01-11T15:50:35Z")
I think throught the animal kingdom there are organisms that have adapted different organs for different uses. Rabbits for instance have large ears and they rely heavily on them, this compensates for relatively poor eyesight and moderate smelling capabilities. Also, many animals use a highly developed sense of touch through their vibrisa (wiskers) that can detect the most minute vibration in the air or on the ground. So to ask a Q about which animal has the best of all worlds, is kind of loaded, as there are few that do have the best of everything. Varying degrees must be factored in. In all I would say wild animals have more acute senses than domesticated ones, however, I have no cites to back this up. That being said, I would think Hienas (sp?) and wolverines and tigers and lions would rank relatively high up on all senses being intuned to their respective environs. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/8 "2005-01-11T15:52:19Z")
BTW, I chose those animals randomly… ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/9 "2005-01-11T15:55:55Z")
Yes, it is generally going to be a trade-off. You are not going to find an animal that is among the very best in all three categories. The best on average are going to be found among the mammalian carnivores. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Serpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@Silver\_Serpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Serpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/10 "2005-01-11T18:31:31Z")
I can’t imagine that domesticated cats or dogs have the best sense of anything on the planet. Isn’t a shark’s sense of smell spectacular? There are other senses, too. Don’t forget about heat receptors (like pit vipers) or those electric impulse receptors that a lot of fish have (sharks’ are apparently quite sensitive). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/11 "2005-01-11T18:35:44Z")
> [@Silver Serpentine](#): > > I can’t imagine that domesticated cats or dogs have the best sense of anything on the planet. Isn’t a shark’s sense of smell spectacular? > > There are other senses, too. Don’t forget about heat receptors (like pit vipers) or those electric impulse receptors that a lot of fish have (sharks’ are apparently quite sensitive). That’s not the question though, as far as I can tell. The OP is not asking what animal is the best at any one of those senses, but which is best overall. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/12 "2005-01-11T18:38:55Z")
Best sense of hearing: Rabbit Best sense of smell: Bear Best sense of sight: Worm Source: Yertle the Turtle and other stories, by Dr. Seuss ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Serpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@Silver\_Serpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Serpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/13 "2005-01-11T18:49:10Z")
Oh, did you mean which animal is the best with all three senses, or which three animals have the best of one sense? I just re-read the OP, and I got a bit confused. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/14 "2005-01-11T19:25:30Z")
Sharks have just about the best sense of smell in the animal kingdom, whilst their hearing is excellent and sight is very good especially at low light levels. [http://elasmophiles.tripod.com/id9.html](http://elasmophiles.tripod.com/id9.html) Dolphins, wales, squid are worth considering as well. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/15 "2005-01-11T21:32:52Z")
> [@Silver Serpentine](#): > > Oh, did you mean which animal is the best with all three senses, or which three animals have the best of one sense? > > I just re-read the OP, and I got a bit confused. Yes, which one has the best average of all three. I think I would like to stick to land animals, however, if you have a cite that mentions, for instance, the Shark as the best then I’ll allow that. I guess what I’m looking for is an animal in which it would be feasible for someone to have as a pet. Not legally, just practically. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/16 "2005-01-11T22:13:43Z")
Isn’t it possible that man might be the answer? Individually, our senses are far outperformed by other members of the animal kingdom, but it wouldn’t be surprising if our average of all three senses puts us over the top. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/17 "2005-01-11T22:50:56Z")
I’ll guess that the turkey vulture is a good candidate. Most birds, many of which have excellent visual acuity, have little or no sense of smell. The turkey vulture is an exception, possessing an acute sense of smell which helps it locate carrion. It also has very good sight and hearing, more typical in a bird. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/18 "2005-01-12T04:04:43Z")
Define “Best”. A hawk can pick out a moving mouse from 100s of meters away. A owl has eyes that operate incredibly well in low light (and has three sets of eyelids). A woodcock has essentially 360 field of vision. Which is better? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/19 "2005-01-12T04:08:26Z")
> [@Antiochus](#): > > Isn’t it possible that man might be the answer? > > Individually, our senses are far outperformed by other members of the animal kingdom, but it wouldn’t be surprising if our average of all three senses puts us over the top. Our eyes are pretty good (though not nearly as good as a hawk’s). Our hearing is OK, but nothing special. As far as smell goes, we are damn near “blind” compared to a dog or most other mammals. I don’t think we’re in the running. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210/20 "2005-01-12T04:13:08Z")
Nothing in the animal kingdom can beat the dog for smell. Sure the shark can smell blood very well. But can it smell chili? The dog can not only smell chili…it can smell each ingredient. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animal-has-the-best-these-three-senses-sight-hearing-and-smell/284210.md?page=2)