Monthly Archive for October, 2011

At 5 cm in diameter, (slightly larger than a golf ball) the ostrich has the largest eye of any land animal. In comparison, the average human eye is about 2.4 cm in diameter.

While its true that a single ostrich eye is larger than its brain, it’s not really fair to single the ostrich out. Several other birds, like the sparrow have eyes that are nearly as big as their brains.

Vision is extremely important in all birds. Avoiding predators, searching for prey, and flying quickly (or running in the case of the ostrich) requires excellent vision. Large eyes allow birds to see more of their environment. Ostriches can run up to 70 kph (44 mph) making them the fastest running bird and putting them among the fastest land animals.

“The relationship of homo sapiens to the other animals is one of unremitting exploitation. We employ their work; we eat and wear them. We exploit them to serve our superstitions: whereas we used to sacrifice them to our gods and tear out their entrails in order to foresee the future, we now sacrifice them to science, and experiment on their entrail in the hope—or on the mere offchance—that we might thereby see a little more clearly into the present … To us it seems incredible that the Greek philosophers should have scanned so deeply into right and wrong and yet never noticed the immorality of slavery. Perhaps 3000 years from now it will seem equally incredible that we do not notice the immorality of our own oppression of animals.”

Brigid Brophy