Open the tool

How does the guinea pig see?

The guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) is a mammal in the order Rodentia. Its eyes belong to the vision type Small prey mammal (UV).

Measured in this species: colour, foveas, night vision and motion (flicker fusion). 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 guinea pigThis species is part of the full catalogue in the tool (full unlock). Your photo stays on your device.

What stands out

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 guinea pig (Cavia porcellus), catalogue-v1
DialValueEvidenceSources
ColourColour receptors
2 receptor classes: 400 nm (VS/SWS (violet)), 530 nm (MWS (green))
measured in this species
Measured[1][2]
SharpnessAcuity
5.8 cycles per degree
median of 1 relatives in family Caviidae: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris
Estimated[3]
Field of viewBinocular overlap
52°
median of 15 relatives in order Rodentia: Octodon degus, Octodon lunatus, Rattus rattus, Mus musculus, Mesocricetus auratus, Sciurus carolinensis
Group default[4][5][6][7]
Sharp zones (foveas)Number of foveas
0
fovea_present / area_centralis_type (retinal topography; count 1 = fovea present, 0 = none)
Measured[8]
Fovea type
horizontal streak		Measured[8]
Night visionActivity pattern
cathemeral
tie ['cathemeral', 'crepuscular'] broken by species-level studies (round-3 tie-break rule 2) (of 6 rows): cathemeral; crepuscular; diurnal; nocturnal
Measured (not re-verified)[9][10][11][1][12][13]
Rods vs cones
mixed
nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated
Derived[9][10][11][1][12][13]
Motion (flicker fusion)Flicker fusion frequency
47.5 Hz
median of 1 bright-light rows (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [47.5, 50.0])
Measured (not re-verified)[14]

Related animals

More mammals: all mammals with measured vision data.

Sources

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. Vega-Zuniga T, Medina FS, Fredes F, et al. 2013. Does nocturnality drive binocular vision? Octodontine rodents as a case study. PLoS ONE 8: e84199.. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084199
  7. Vega-Zuniga T, Medina FS, Marín G, Letelier JC, Palacios AG, Němec P, Schleich CE, Mpodozis J. (2017). Selective binocular vision loss in two subterranean caviomorph rodents: Spalacopus cyanus and Ctenomys talarum. Scientific reports
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. Wilman et al. 2014 EltonTraits 1.0, MamFuncDat.txt. doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. 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?