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How does the common moorhen see?

The common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) is a bird in the order Gruiformes. Its eyes belong to the vision type Panoramic grain-eater and wader.

Measured in this species: field of view and night vision. One measured dial: a value other than colour or sharpness is measured in this species; colour and sharpness are not measured here. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.

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The six dials

Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.

Vision values for the common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), catalogue-v1
DialValueEvidenceSources
ColourColour receptors
4 receptor classes: 404 nm (VS/SWS (violet)), 450 nm (SWS (blue)), 499 nm (MWS (green)), 561 nm (LWS (long))
receptor set of nearest measured relative Grus americana (same order Gruiformes)
Group default[1]
SharpnessAcuity
9.164 cycles per degree
allometry (Aves): log10(acuity_cpd) = intercept + slope * log10(eye_axial_length_mm); slope 0.9017, intercept 0.1397, R2 0.453, n 99 (fitted in this script; fitted range [4.36, 39.81] mm); eye_axial_length_mm 8.167 mm
Estimated[2]
Field of viewBinocular overlap
34°
median of 1 rows (eyes-at-rest rows preferred)
Measured[3]
Total field of view
338°
group default: median total field of vision type V10 within phylum Chordata in species-v1: Columba livia, Scolopax minor
Group default[4][5]
Sharp zones (foveas)Number of foveas
1
median of 48 relatives in class Aves: Branta canadensis, Cardinalis cardinalis, Passerina cyanea, Zenaida macroura, Cyanocitta cristata, Junco hyemalis
Group default[6][7][8]
Fovea type
single central fovea (displaced dorso-temporally from retinal centre)		Group default[6][7][8]
Night visionActivity pattern
diurnal
mode of 6 rows (of 6 rows): cathemeral; diurnal; not_nocturnal
Measured (not re-verified)[9][10][11][12][13][14]
Rods vs cones
cone-dominated
nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated
Derived[9][10][11][12][13][14]
Motion (flicker fusion)Flicker fusion frequency
88.5 Hz
median of 17 relatives in class Aves: Bubo virginianus, Melopsittacus undulatus, Passer domesticus, Taeniopygia guttata, Columba livia, Calypte anna
Group default[15][16][17][18][19]

Related animals

More birds: all birds with measured vision data.

Sources

  1. Frazer SA, Baghalian M, et al. 2024. Discovering genotype-phenotype relationships with machine learning and the Visual Physiology Opsin Database (VPOD). GigaScience 13:giae073; VPOD v1.3 data release. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19051998
  2. Ausprey I.J. & Ritland S. 2024. Eye morphology contributes to the ecology and evolution of the avian tree of life [Dataset]. Dryad. Digitised Table 7 of Ritland S. 1982, The allometry of the vertebrate eye, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago. Paper: Ausprey 2024 J Anim Ecol doi:10.1111/1365-2656.14141. doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3xsj3txq7
  3. Vision and foraging in structurally complex habitats: common moorhens (Gallinula chloropus). Ecology and Evolution 2026, e74060.. doi.org/10.1002/ece3.74060
  4. species_v1:Martin & Young 1983
  5. species_v1:Martin 1994
  6. Moore BA, Tyrrell LP, Pita D, Bininda-Emonds ORP, Fernandez-Juricic E 2017. Does retinal configuration make the head and eyes of foveate birds move? Sci Rep 7: 38406. Appendix 1.. doi.org/10.1038/srep38406
  7. Potier S, Mitkus M, Bonadonna F, Duriez O, Isard P-F, Dulaurent T, Mentek M, Kelber A 2017. Eye size, fovea, and foraging ecology in accipitriform raptors. Brain Behav Evol 90: 232-242. Supplementary material (Tables S1, S2).. doi.org/10.1159/000479783
  8. Rodrigues T, Matter MM, Chiodini A, et al. 2026. Foveal vision in fast-flying birds hunting on the wing. bioRxiv 2026.06.05.730304. doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.05.730304
  9. Angielczyk KD, Schmitz L 2014. Nocturnality in synapsids predates the origin of mammals by over 100 million years. Proc R Soc B 281: 20141642. Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.1v8kj.. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1642
  10. Light conditions and the evolution of the visual system in birds (figshare dataset, SupplementaryDataset1). doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22116371.v3
  11. Choiniere JN, Neenan JM, Schmitz L, Ford DP, Chapelle KEJ, Balanoff AM, Sipla JS, Georgi JA, Walsh SA, Norell MA, Xu X, Clark JM, Benson RBJ. 2021. Evolution of vision and hearing modalities in theropod dinosaurs. Science 372:610-613. doi:10.1126/science.abe7941. Data: https://osf.io/teq73/. doi.org/10.1126/science.abe7941
  12. Wilman H, Belmaker J, Simpson J, de la Rosa C, Rivadeneira MM, Jetz W. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027. BirdFuncDat.txt. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
  13. Schmitz & Motani 2011. Nocturnality in dinosaurs inferred from scleral ring and orbit morphology. Science 332:705. Comparative data redeposited in Xing et al. 2020 supplementary information (Zenodo).. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3591994
  14. Moura et al. 2024. A phylogeny-informed characterisation of global tetrapod traits addresses data gaps and biases. PLoS Biol 22:e3002658. TetrapodTraits v3.0.1.. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22536349
  15. Boström JE, Dimitrova M, Canton C, Håstad O, Qvarnström A, Ödeen A. 2016. Ultra-rapid vision in birds. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0151099. S1 Table. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151099
  16. Haarlem CS, Hynes C, Jackson AL, Mitchell KJ, O'Connell RG, Healy K. 2026. Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom. Nature Ecology & Evolution (doi:10.1038/s41559-026-02994-7). Figshare dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.30556475. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30556475
  17. Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
  18. Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631
  19. Lafitte A, Sordello R, Legrand M, Nicolas V, Obein G, Reyjol Y. 2022. A flashing light may not be that flashy: A systematic review on critical fusion frequencies. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0279718. S10 File (CFF database). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279718

Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?