How does the lemon shark see?
The lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris) is a shark or ray in the order Carcharhiniformes. Its eyes belong to the vision type Shark, ray and warm-eyed ocean predator.
Measured in this species: colour and motion (flicker fusion). Measured colour or sharpness: a measured receptor set or acuity in this species; other dials come from relatives or group defaults. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.
What stands out
- It has one receptor class for colour, so it sees brightness but no hue.
- Its sharpest vision resolves 6.458 cycles per degree: the finest stripe pattern it can tell apart from grey.
- It stops seeing flicker at 37 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks choppier to it.[4][5]
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 1 receptor class: 518 nm (MWS (green)) species-v1.csv value measured in this species (not in tidy tables) | Measured (not re-verified) | [1] |
| Sharpness | Acuity 6.458 cycles per degree median of 6 relatives in family Carcharhinidae: Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, Carcharhinus leucas, Carcharhinus melanopterus, Carcharhinus plumbeus, Galeocerdo cuvier, Prionace glauca | Estimated | [2][3] |
| Field of view | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Sharp zones (foveas) | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Night vision | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Motion (flicker fusion) | Flicker fusion frequency 37 Hz median of 1 rows (no bright-light flag) (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [37.0]) | Measured | [4] |
Related animals
- Scalloped hammerhead shark same vision type
- Blacknose shark same vision type
- Blacktip reef shark same vision type
- Bonnethead same vision type
- Bull shark same vision type
- Sandbar shark same vision type
More sharks and rays: all sharks and rays with measured vision data.
Sources
- species_v1:Hart et al. 2025
- Caves EM, Sutton TT, Warrant EJ, Johnsen S 2023. Measures and models of visual acuity in epipelagic and mesopelagic teleosts and elasmobranchs. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. zenodo.org/records/8251016
- Claes JM et al. 2014. Photon hunting in the twilight zone: visual features of mesopelagic bioluminescent sharks. PLoS ONE 9:e104213, Dataset S1. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0104213
- 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?