4 ms·
I'm pretty skeptical about the idea that men have wider eye spacing because it makes us better hunters. If eye spacing had any significant effect on hunting abi
by hughprime 17y ago
I'm pretty skeptical about the idea that men have wider eye spacing because it makes us better hunters. If eye spacing had any significant effect on hunting ability I'm pretty sure we'd find ourselves with eyes spaced as far apart as possible, but instead we find there's actually a fair bit of room on either side. Widely-spaced eyes are a pretty "cheap" evolutionary adaptation.
- nopassrecover 17y agoUnless it introduces reduced capability in say snow, depth perception or against bird predators.
- sorbus 17y agoAs I recall, having eyes fairly close together (not on seperate sides of the face) is something which tends to be associated with predators/carnivores, while herbavores tend to have their eyes very far apart to increase the area which they can locate things - like predators - in. In other words, if you want to see everything around you, your eyes should be far apart, but if you want to be very good at focusing on something you're hunting, they should be closer together. Though I don't remember where I heard this, and hence cannot provide a citation.
- hughprime 17y agoIt sounds pretty likely... though I think tree-dwelling creatures (like many of our recent-ish ancestors) tend to have eyes on the front of their head even if herbivorous -- examples include possums, sloths, koalas, monkeys. I'd guess depth perception is pretty important when you're climbing a tree. Anyway, I'm certainly not arguing that binocular vision isn't good for hunting, I'm just saying that the extra few millimeters distinguishing men from women probably doesn't help much. I'm pretty sure men have more widely-spaced eyes than women cuz we're just plain bigger than women (a fact which _does_ actually help with hunting).