All animals

How does a deer see the world?

No red cone - a tiger's orange coat reads as dull green.

A tiger standing in green jungle foliageHuman vision
A tiger standing in green jungle foliage, as it would appear to a deerDeer vision

The tiger is obvious to you. To a deer, it is the same green as the leaves.

What's going on

Deer are dichromats: blue and green-yellow cones, no red one. Orange and green excite their remaining cones almost identically, so a tiger's coat sinks into the foliage instead of contrasting with it. Their acuity is roughly a fifth of ours, which softens the stripes further. That single missing cone is the tiger's entire hunting strategy.

Field of view

You: ~190°

Deer: ~310°

Approximate horizontal field of view, seen from above. The dot is the head.

You vs the deer

Low-light visionDeer wins
You
Deer
Fine detailYou win
You
Deer
Colour rangeYou win
You
Deer
Motion detectionDeer wins
You
Deer