
So I think that nocturnal animals can use vision during the darker nights of your moonless world. That would be especially useful for predators seeking warm blooded prey. And some animals can sense or even see infrared light. If your planet has a lot more of them for some reason, there may be more light for animals to see with, even in caverns or dense forests when the light from the sky is blocked.Īnd of course there are also some animals, mostly deep see ones, which glow.Īnd of course on Earth all objects at normal temperatures glow in the infrared bands. So nocturnal animals on your world should have simply evolved better night vision than nocturnal animals on Earth.Īnd on Earth there are bioluminsecent fungi which glow in the dark.

Remember than many animals have much better night vision than humans do. If there is an advanced civilization on your planet, there could be light pollution, drowning out the starlight with artificial light refected downwards from clouds and air pollution onto the surface for miles around cities and towns, and making it much easier for animals to see at night. Here is a list of some nocturnal owl species: Barn owl (Tyto alba) Tawny owl (Strix aluco) Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) Snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) Barred owl (Strix varia) Eastern screech-owl (Megascops asio) Long-eared owl (Asio otus) Short-eared owl (Asio flammeus) Northern saw-whet owl.

Anyway, on Earth the total light from the night sky is usually many times the total light from a new moon. The light of fhe night sky comes from the stars and from air glow, and other factors. The total integrated magnitude of the night sky is listed as -6.5, which is 4 magnitudes or about 39.8 times as bright as the light of a new moon.
Are owls nocturnal creatures full#
The new moon has an apparent magnitude of - 2.50, the full moon has an apparent magnitude of -12.90, which is over 10,000 times brighter. And I could see well enough to walk up the hill safely. I used to walk up a hill to a field to look at the stars with binoculars, and moonless nights would be the best for that. Everything looks like a very, very dark gray almost totally black.īut if I wake up after a while I find that my eyes have adapted to the dark, whether they were open or closed, and I can see many different shades of gray and see where all the furnituare is and everything. For the last few years my bedrooms have been almost totally dark when I turn off the lights to go to sleep.
