Our round pupils only achieve a 15 fold increase. The ability of your cat’s pupil to change from being a narrow slit in bright light to fully dilated in low light large equates to about a 300 fold increase in the area of the pupil. This may be true, but it could also be that great adaptation at work, to protect your cat’s eyes. We sometimes mistake this look on our cat’s faces thinking the cat is either sleepy or disgusted with something or us. Then to reduce the light even further, your cat may close her eyes half way and squint. The cat’s vertical pupil shape is a real benefit, able to open wide, to an almost completely round shape, to let a lot of light in, when its dark out, to narrowing to a tiny slit to reduce the amount of light that enters as light increases. In domestic cats however, their pupils are vertically shaped, not round, so when bright light, enter their eyes, to protect the retina, their pupils constrict into a narrow vertical slit.
The constriction of the pupils is what stops too much light from getting in the eye which would damage our retinas. Humans, (tigers and lions, as well) have round pupils and when bright light hits the eye, our pupils shrink or constrict to a tiny round pin prick size and shape. Some of the reason we perceive it as scary is that their eyes are different from ours. It seems that for us, we associate animals, with eyes that have those vertical slits, like crocodiles and snakes and Harry Potter’s Voldemort, with being creepy, scary and threatening. Its Halloween time, and you’ll see many images of the black cats with their slitted eyes.
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