Here's how this video feels to a fly.
(SPEAKING VERY SLOWLY) Welcome to D News.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Anthony here for D News.
And you know I'm all about how animals see the world.
In a previous video, we talked about how
they see colors and magnetic fields
and all kinds of insane stuff.
But now a new study in animal behavior shows some of them
also see things in matrix bullet time-- whoa.
The team measured a whole bunch of animals and their reaction
times based on something called critical flicker fusion
frequency, basically how their body responds
to things like flashing lights.
And it turns out, the processing of information
is tied to an animal's size and metabolic rate.
You know how hard it is to swat a fly?
That's because they take in seven times more
visual and audio information per second than we do.
The same goes for insects and small birds.
Dogs take in information at twice the speed we do.
That's why you can't get your dog into TV or a Skype video.
It's just seeing this weirdly flickering screen.
Reaction time is the difference between life and death
in the wild, especially for small animals
that are prey for just about everything.
So their ability to take in information quickly
is essential for their survival.
And you know how humans process information is interesting.
We can only take in so much at a time, but we can change it,
or rather, our bodies can, situationally.
If you ever felt like time's slowed down
before a car accident or a particularly
dangerous situation, that's your body
flipping your brain into overdrive,
so you have more ability to react.
Our ability to process information
can also be changed by age and training.
Athletes have a tendency to be able to take
in more information while playing their particular sport,
meaning time seems just a tiny bit slower to them
during a game.
And as we get older, our ability to process and take
in information slows down, meaning
time seems like it's slightly faster than we were younger.
In case you're wondering, besides flies,
squirrels and pigeons seem to take
in the most information at once.
The slowest animals were the European eel, the leatherback
turtle, and the black nose shark.
And interestingly, only one animal's speed
doesn't match its perception.
The tiger beetle runs too fast to keep up with its own vision.
It has to stop, wait a second, and then run again.
It is like living in a permanently buffering YouTube
video.
We've all been there.
Am I right?
If you want to know more about animal vision or any
of their other crazy abilities, we
have tons of videos about them in the links below.
And subscribe for more D News.