Do they see in the dark?

NASA

NASA

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How good is a coyotes night vision? We already know how good it is in the daylight, but how well do they see in the dark? Has their eyesight developed to the same degree as say, an owls? Domestic cats have pretty good night vision. Their wild cousins have even better night sight. Why not coyotes? Or, do they not need it? Their hearing is second to none. Maybe that's all they need to find their way at night. After all, that's all a bat uses to get around in the dark, right?
 
Their eyes reflecting light is the first clue. Ours don't. The reflection is made by a reflective layer behind the sight cells (adimittedly I don't have a clue as to what they are called in English). This causes the light to pass twice through the sight cells and thus, right there they probably have twice the night vision of us.

Then that is multiplied further: The cells that give color vision aren't very light sensitive. The black-and-white vision cells are. We've got color vision, they've got light sensitivity. Count on any dog to beat your own night vision by far, and then some. Poorer color vision, better night vision. And the light sensitive (non-color-sensitive) cells also are more motion-sensitive! So watch when you're shouldering that gun!
 
Rods and cones. If I remember correctly the rods pick up black and white, and movement, and cones distinguish colors.

Humans have lots of cone cells, but that varies from person to person. I believe I read somewhere that men generally have more rods than women, so a man's night vision is better than even a womans, but women generally have better color perception than most men.

On the whole though, the more rod cells any species has, the better and crisper their night-vision. I'd say they're roughly comperable with just about any other dog/wolf species.
 
I don't know how good a coyote sees at night. I have called coyotes at night that ran full blast through cactus and around rocks that I couldn't have walked through in the day. I don't know what all that means, maybe they can't see and just smell the rocks and cactus? lol.
 
NASA,

The relative size of an owl's eyes to its head/brain indicate that they have better vision than the coyote. Having said that, I recall studies that have conclusively demonstrated that owls rely more on their sense of hearing than vision in the dark. One in particular was conducted on barn owls (Tyto alba) that were placed in a large, fully enclosed structure with zero readable light. Rodents were outfitted with balls of tissue paper attached to their tails and released. The barnies were able to capture the mice on the first attempt 93% of the time under circumstances where their eyes were useless. Looking at their skulls, the auditory meatus is very pronounced in an owl as well, whereas a coyote's isn't nearly as large. (Bigger than ours, but not what I would call huge) And, with an auditory meatus, size matters. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I think they can see better than us, but only because of the relative abundance of rods (versus cones) in the retinas, combined with the presence of the tapetum lucidum, the structure described by Arcticfox.

In poor lighting, i.e., new moon, they probably rely more on their hearing. Otherwise, they maintain a balance of defense using all three of their main senses (olfactory, auditory, visual). Just my .02.

Sidebar: On the subject of owls, let's play IDMe. What am I?

Longearedowl.jpg


And NASA, you be quiet. Useless hint, in 1986, I lead the department of ornithology head from my alma mater to a cedar grove where I recovered a nestling aged - one of these and which turned out to be the first recorded instance of this species nesting in Kansas. He told me I was crazy when I told him I had a young one. Who's crazy now?!?
 


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