How does the chimpanzee see?
The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is a mammal in the order Primates. Its eyes belong to the vision type Human-like trichromat (baseline).
Measured in this species: colour, sharpness, foveas and night vision. Measured core: measured values on at least 3 of the 6 dials. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.
See your photo as the chimpanzeeThis species is part of the full catalogue in the tool (full unlock). Your photo stays on your device.
What stands out
- It has three colour receptor classes, like most people.
- Its sharpest vision resolves 64.28 cycles per degree: the finest stripe pattern it can tell apart from grey.
- Its eyes cover about 200° around the head, with 122.5° seen by both eyes at once.
- It stops seeing flicker at 60 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks about the same.[13][14]
- Activity pattern: diurnal.
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.
| Dial | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Colour receptors 3 receptor classes: 430 nm (VS/SWS (violet)), 530 nm (MWS (green)), 560 nm (LWS (long)) species-v1.csv value measured in this species (not in tidy tables) | Measured (not re-verified) | [1] |
| Sharpness | Acuity 64.28 cycles per degree median of 1 behavioural rows (method priority rule) | Measured | [2] |
| Field of view | Binocular overlap 122.5° median of 1 relatives in family Hominidae: Homo sapiens | Estimated | [3][4] |
| Total field of view 200° median species-v1 total field of family Hominidae: Homo sapiens | Estimated | [5] | |
| Sharp zones (foveas) | Number of foveas 1 fovea_present / area_centralis_type (retinal topography; count 1 = fovea present, 0 = none) | Measured | [6] |
| Fovea type fovea | Measured | [6] | |
| Night vision | Activity pattern diurnal mode of 7 rows (of 7 rows): diurnal; photopic | Measured (not re-verified) | [7][8][9][10][11][12] |
| Rods vs cones cone-dominated nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated | Derived | [7][8][9][10][11][12] | |
| Motion (flicker fusion) | Flicker fusion frequency 60 Hz median of 1 relatives in family Hominidae: Homo sapiens | Estimated | [13][14] |
Related animals
- Human same vision type
- Rhesus macaque same vision type
- Crab-eating macaque same vision type
- Southern pig-tailed macaque same vision type
- Green monkey same vision type
- Vervet monkey same vision type
More mammals: all mammals with measured vision data.
Sources
- species_v1:Jacobs, Deegan & Moran 1996
- Veilleux CC, Kirk EC 2014. Visual acuity in mammals. Brain Behav Evol 83:43, Supplementary Table 1 (cleaned CSV in Evo-M1-Trait-Data). doi.org/10.1159/000357830
- Heesy CP 2004. On the relationship between orbit orientation and binocular visual field overlap in mammals. Anat Rec 281A:1104, Table 1. doi.org/10.1002/ar.a.20116
- Heffner RS, Heffner HE 1992. Visual factors in sound localization in mammals. J Comp Neurol 317:219, Table 1 (via Evo-M1 sensory merge). doi.org/10.1002/cne.903170302
- species_v1:Campbell & Green 1965
- Kopania EEK, Clark NL. 2025. Mammalian retinal specializations for high acuity vision evolve in response to both foraging strategies and morphological constraints. Evolution Letters 9: qrae072. Supplementary Tables S1-S2.. doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrae072
- Borges R, Johnson WE, O'Brien SJ, Gomes C, Heesy CP, Antunes A (2018) Adaptive genomic evolution of opsins reveals that early mammals flourished in nocturnal environments. BMC Genomics 19:121
- Wilman et al. 2014 EltonTraits 1.0, MamFuncDat.txt. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
- Maor R, Dayan T, Ferguson-Gow H, Jones KE. 2017. Temporal niche expansion in mammals from a nocturnal ancestor after dinosaur extinction. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1:1889-1895. Supplementary Table 1. doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0366-5
- Jones KE et al. 2009. PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals. Ecology 90:2648. Ecological Archives E090-184. doi.org/10.1890/08-1494.1
- Schmitz L, Motani R. 2011. Science 332:705-708, SOM. doi.org/10.1126/science.1200043
- 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
- 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
- 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
Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?