why a chins eyes look the way they do

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stargrazer

stargrazer

furry pet mom
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
35
Location
Largo, Florida
I hope this is not too stupid of a question but I was looking at my chin Remi's eyes this morning. They look solid black to me and was wondering if anyone might know why a chinchilla's eyes are black. How well they can see and if they can see all of the colors of the spectrum. I assume they can see well in the dark as they are nocturnal.
Thanks for the input.
 
I don't have an answer for you, but I took this picture of one of my girls the other day and in it you can see her pupil so I thought it was interesting
IMG_0839.jpg
 
Chins actually aren't nocturnal from what I can recall from the old forum. They're something else... crepsucular? It's when they're awake at dawn and dusk but not during the straight up night or day.
 
Wow.. that's interesting. Is pupil shape determined by genetics? Or does it actually change? I've noticed this myself, but never really gave it much thought.
 
Thanks to Therese for sending me a higher resolution copy!

It is interesting that all of the eyes they studied had a slit pupil. I have several that even at the most dilated point are still perfectly spherical. Maybe I'll have time to dig through my old pics and find them later...
 
Kara that's a completely amazing pic. Shows all of the eye structures off. And of course looks demonic. He he he. As an offshoot, I ended up stopping breeding beige and PW because so many people were so offput by the eye coloring that they wouldn't buy them. There are those of us who love those beautiful eyes and those who don't. This article is really interesting though, especially because it often seems that more research needs to be done for our babies. And here we have the suprize that this research had been done forever long ago. There should be a place to put chin specific information because i'd love to read articles like this. I just normally don't come across them because they get buried in the health & hygiene and this thread. Having them all in one place would be nice so that I could just go and read up the studies out there about chins. Thanks again for this article Silverrose. = Jessica
 
My computer won't open the file that was posted in this thread.

My one male has weird eyes, when he's in the light they're like a snake's eyes, the pupil is a very thin oval that's vertical. It's like a little sliver, it's creepy. I wonder if his eyes are like that just in the light or all the time, but I can't tell in less light, too hard to see.
 
Very interesting! I had a suspicion one of my chinchillas was sleeping with her eyes open, but I thought maybe she was just really good at zoning out.

"The retina of the Chinchilla exhibits all the characteristics of a nocturnal animal. It lacks a fovea, and as far as could be determined with high power magnification, it is cone-free." - This means they can't focus as well as humans (but when would a chinchilla need to read a book?) and the lack of cones means they lack the ability to see color.
 
If you want to see something really interesting, shine a flashlight on the chins in a dark room. Their eyes glow so bright! They have amazing eyes, they can see very well when there is almost no light. They can't see color, i knew that...no one else ever believes me. :rolleyes:
 
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