How does the European hedgehog see?

The European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) is a mammal in the order Erinaceomorpha. Its eyes belong to the vision type Small prey mammal (UV).

Measured in this species: night vision and motion (flicker fusion). 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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What stands out

It has one receptor class for colour, so it sees brightness but no hue.
Its sharpest vision resolves 3.4 cycles per degree: the finest stripe pattern it can tell apart from grey.
Both eyes see the same 35° in front of it (binocular overlap), where depth is judged best.
It stops seeing flicker at 30 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks choppier to it.^[20][21]
Activity pattern: nocturnal.

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 European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), catalogue-v1
Dial	Value	Evidence	Sources
Colour	Colour receptors 1 receptor class: 362 nm (UVS) ESTIMATE: receptor classes from opsin-gene presence in this species; lambda max per class from the measured class template of the nearest taxon (never from the gene itself)	Group default	^{[1][2][3][4][5]}
Colour	Ultraviolet yes: at least one receptor peaks in the ultraviolet	Group default
Sharpness	Acuity 3.4 cycles per degree median of 145 relatives in class Mammalia: Myotis daubentonii, Mesocricetus auratus, Tarsipes rostratus, Carollia perspicillata, Tursiops truncatus, Sminthopsis crassicaudata	Group default	^{[2][6][7][8][9][10][11]}
Field of view	Binocular overlap 35° median of 1 relatives in family Erinaceidae: Paraechinus hypomelas	Estimated	^[8]
Sharp zones (foveas)	Number of foveas 0 median of 80 relatives in class Mammalia: Canis lupus, Vulpes lagopus, Acinonyx jubatus, Felis catus, Crocuta crocuta, Enhydra lutris	Group default	^[12]
Sharp zones (foveas)	Fovea type area centralis	Group default	^[12]
Night vision	Activity pattern nocturnal mode of 7 rows (of 8 rows): cathemeral; crepuscular; mixed (nocturnal/crepuscular, cathemeral, crepuscular or diurnal/crepuscular); nocturnal; nocturnal/crepuscular; scotopic	Measured (not re-verified)	^{[13][2][14][15][16][17][18]}
Night vision	Rods vs cones rod-dominated nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated	Derived	^{[13][2][14][15][16][17][18]}
Motion (flicker fusion)	Flicker fusion frequency 30 Hz median of 1 rows (no bright-light flag) (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [30.0])	Measured	^[19]

Related animals

Brown rat same vision type
House mouse same vision type
Mongolian jird same vision type
Common treeshrew same vision type
Rabbit same vision type
Syrian hamster same vision type

More mammals: all mammals with measured vision data.

Sources

Cone topography and spectral sensitivity in two potentially trichromatic marsupials, the quokka (Setonix brachyurus) and quenda (Isoodon obesulus) (2005)
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
Longcore T. 2023. A compendium of photopigment peak sensitivities and visual spectral response curves of terrestrial wildlife to guide design of outdoor nighttime lighting. Basic Appl Ecol 73:40-50. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2023.09.002. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8432720
Müller B, Glösmann M, Peichl L, Knop GC, Hagemann C, Ammermüller J (2009) Bat eyes have ultraviolet-sensitive cone photoreceptors. PLoS ONE 4:e6390
VPOD in-vivo (MSP / single-cell) lambda max compendium, file scp_cleaned.csv, VPOD GitHub (Frazer et al. 2025 bioRxiv 10.1101/2025.08.22.671864). github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db/tree/main/scripts_n_notebooks/vpod_ML_workflows/mine_n_match/data_sources/lmax/vpod
Caves EM, Fernandez-Juricic E, Kelley LA (2024) Ecological and morphological correlates of visual acuity in birds. J Exp Biol 227(2): jeb246063. Supplementary Table S1.. doi.org/10.1242/jeb.246063
de Sousa AA et al. 2022. A natural history of vision loss: insight from evolution for human visual function. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 134:104550 (mmc, acuity compilation). doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104550
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
Kirk EC, Kay RF 2004. The evolution of high visual acuity in the Anthropoidea. In Anthropoid Origins, Table 1 (behavioural acuity). doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8873-7_20
Kirk & Kay 2004 Table 2 (anatomical acuity). doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8873-7_20
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
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
Anderson SR, Wiens JJ. 2017. Out of the dark: 350 million years of conservatism and evolution in diel activity patterns in vertebrates. Evolution 71:1944-1959. Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.fg700. doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fg700
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
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
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?