Ask A Bear: What Color Are Your Eyes At Night?

Our resident bruin expert answers all your questions in our weekly feature, 'Ask A Bear.'

Q: At night, with an LED flashlight, what color are your eyes, Mr. Brown Bear? How about your cousin Mr. Black?—Rick Guidos, via email

A: Was that you shining a flashlight into my eyes the other night? If so, you're in big trouble, Mister.

Like dogs, deer, wolves, foxes, cats, and scores of other animals, I've got a membrane in my eyes called a tapetum lucidum, which reflects light back toward my iris to improve night vision (sorry: humans don't have them). When a bright light gets shined into them, they beam back out with a reflective glow.

In photos, the glow ranges from yellow to yellowish orange, though some people report seeing red or green. (Variations in color between species often come from the presence of nutrients like riboflavin, distortions in the lens, and iris color.) Black bears also appear yellow to orange, though people sometimes report seeing red.

Bottom line: You're unlikely to identify my species at night solely by shining a light into my eyes.

—BEAR

Got a question for the bear? Send it to askabear@backpacker.com.

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Dec 17, 2010

More important than the color, our experience in Yosemite taught us that the spacing of a bear's eyes is deceptive. We thought we were seeing a racoon outside our camp - until he turned sideways and saw the silhouette!

MrRedwood

Dec 16, 2010

Red-eye is caused by illumination of the blood-rich retina. While it isn't reflective as the tapetum lucidum is, the camera's very intense flash sometimes catches a very dilated pupil and picks up that color. The "red-eye reduction" capability of most cameras fires enough of a pre-shutter flash to close down the iris enough to reduce the effect. Wikipedia has a good article on the Red-Eye Effect.

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Dec 16, 2010

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Cranbo

Dec 16, 2010

If we don't have the tapeturn lucidum, then what causes red-eye in photos of the humans?