18 Animals With Multiple Eyes (More Than 2 Eyes +Images)

Have you seen Animals with multiple eyes. Of course, You’ll say the spiders, Right! But, Apart from spiders, Which animals have multiple eyes?

Now you either don’t know or anticipating to know them.

In this post we shall discover animals with multiple eyes from 3 to 1,000, that spark your interest to know how they would appear-bizarre, weird, but don’t worry, some beautiful animals are also included in the list with pictures .

Animals With Three Eyes

Tuatara: 3 Eyes

Tuatara are less seen reptiles that are usually found in New Zealand and belong to the reptiles that successfully lived in the age of the dinosaurs. 

Surprisingly, Tuatara has 3 eyes, two common reptilian eyes, the third eye is called ‘parietal eye’ located on top of its heads-facing the sky.

Its third eye has everything that is usually present in eyes such as lens, retina, cornea, and nerves, However, Once the egg is hatched they are covered by scales.

Next animal with 3 eyes is the Komodo dragon!

Komodo Dragon: 3 Eyes

The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard in the world, and is also known as the Komodo monitor, found only in the islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, and Gili Motang, all present in Indonesia.

Apart from the common two eyes, They have third eyes called ‘parietal eyes’ on their head and face the sky which senses light and dark. It acts as a light sensor-a biological photoreceptor, thus can analyze the day, night, and season based on the light it is being exposed to.

Better Vision: They can see distant objects which are typically 300 m away from them through their common two eyes.

Iguana: 3 Eyes

Iguana is herbivorous, omnivorous lizards are found in Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Southern Brazil. These are kept as pets because they are cute, calm and available in many colors such as blue, green, and brown.

Of course, As we know that most of the reptiles and lizards have third eyes, Now our pet Iguana too has third eyes known as partial eyes, that look like scales and can’t be distinguished easily due to the presence of similar scales around them. 

Its third eye faces the sky and can sense the light and movement of possible predators that could approach from the sky.

Triops: 3 Eyes

Triops is a group of small crustaceans found in Africa, Australia, Asia, South America, Europe, North America. Some of them are used as pets that can live about 90 days. 

These cute and small crustaceans have three eyes, two common eyes, the third eye facing the sky not easily visible to our eyes, can sense the light and is located between the two common eyes.

Animals With Four Eyes

Lamprey: 4 Eyes

Lamprey is the first animal in the history to possess backbones and is also known as jawless fish since they don’t have solid jaws but are equipped with numerous teeth with a blood sucking mouth that helps them by boring into the flesh of other aquatic animals.

Most of the lamprey have four eyes, two common eyes, other two are parietal eyes which are developed from the parapineal organ and the pineal organ. These parietal eyes are located at the center of the upper side of the braincase.

Parietal Eye to Escape: Lamprey equipped with two partial eyes facing the sky can be helpful in detecting the possible threat from above and also from behind.

Four-Eyed Fish (Anableps): 4 Eyes

Anableps is also known as Largescale foureyes, Stargazer fish, Four-eyed fish, Striped four eyed fish is a fish with four eyes that live in fresh and brackish water which are usually found in South America and Trinidad.

These fishes have four eyes, but few suggest that they don’t have four eyes. However, each eye has two lobes, each lobe has its own pupils that all result in separate vision, where one lobe monitors above the water surface, while the second lobe monitors the underwater. 

Interestingly, Their chance of survival and reproduction is more as they are able to view the aerial environments and aquatic environments simultaneously as it enables the food while also preventing them from becoming food for others.

Animals With Five Eyes

Praying Mantis: 5 Eyes 

Mantises are five-eyed insects found in temperate and tropical habitats. Interestingly they can live about a year, which is quite impressive when compared to insects, and considered as a symbol of supernatural powers by the early Civilizations, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, etc.

A praying mantis has 5 eyes, 2 big compound eyes, that are easily visible to our naked eyes, used for depth vision, Whereas the other 3 smaller eyes located in between these compound eyes and are on the middle of their head, used for detecting light.

3D vision: Praying mantises are the only known invertebrates that are capable of viewing 3D.

Bees: 5 Eyes

Bees are flying insects that are found to have five eyes. There are about 16,000 discovered  species of bees distributed throughout the world except in Antarctica.

They have five eyes, two large compound eyes, and three smaller ocelli eyes (simple eyes) arranged in a triangular manner in the center of its head. The two large compound eyes visible to our naked eyes that have many tiny lenses help in seeing patterns, shape, other insects and animals. Whereas the three smaller ocelli eyes or simple eyes help in the detection of light but not shapes, thus aids in sensing the predators if they are approaching above them.

Nocturnal bees have large ocelli or simple eyes that are super sensitive to light and dark, even though they can’t form images. 

Wasp: 5 Eyes

A wasp is an insect with five eyes, and breathtakingly there are about  1,00,000 wasp species present worldwide.

There are five eyes in total in the wasp, two large compound eyes that are visible to our naked eyes easily. Whereas the other three eyes are called ocelli arranged in a triangular shape at the vertex of the head. 

Wasps Eyesight: They have low-resolution vision and depend on visual cues that are a photographic memory for navigation.

Starfish: 5 Eyes

Starfish are also known as sea stars, large invertebrates belong to echinoderms that are usually found in the marine and vary by a number of arms, color, diet, etc.

Starfish, Instead of having eyes like other animals, they possess eyespots located at the tip of each arm which can only detect light and dark. Thus the starfish with 5 arms have 5 corresponding eyespots at the tip of each arm and so on.

These eyespots can detect different shades of light through which they can navigate their surroundings while also finding their food and also avoid becoming food for other animals.

Opabinia: 5 Eyes

Opabinia is an extinct animal with unusual body parts such as five eyes, soft-body with a fan-shaped tail. 

Surprisingly! They have five eyes, two stalked eyes at the front, another two large stalked eyes at the sideway, and a single shorter stalked eye in the middle of these.

Unlike other arthropods, Opabinia is expected to have five eyes that are all compound types of eyes.

What creature has five eyes and six legs? Bee, wasp, praying mantis, etc have five eyes and six legs.

Animals With More Than Six Eyes

Ogre-Faced Spider: 8 Eyes 

The net-casting spider, also known as the ogre-faced spider is an arachnid and is a nocturnal spider with super night vision. These spiders have 8 eyes, but two eyes are more visible due to their large size giving us the false impression of only two eyes. However, its eyes have the best low-light vision, especially at night.

They do not have irises that cause the sunlight to destroy their sensitive retina when they encounter sunlight every morning that has to be replaced by new cells by the evening that is necessary for night vision. 

Jumping Spider: 8 Eyes

A jumping spider is an arachnid with 8 eyes that brings them a great vision for hunting their prey, that’s usually bugs. These spiders are like a tiny cat when it comes to hunting as they chase, jump, leap to catch their prey.

They have eight eyes, two primary eyes that can move, and six secondary eyes that can’t be movable. Two big eyes also called principal eyes on their forehead are large in size and are sensitive to colors, and can analyze the distance. all the other secondary eyes can analyze movement, moving objects, some of the secondary eyes are sensitive to green light as well.

Telescopic Tube: Two eyes of jumping spiders are like telescopes as they have a corneal lens at the front and back it’s telescope eyes.

Horseshoe Crabs: 10 Eyes

Horseshoe crabs are arthropods with 10 eyes living in marine and brackish water. However, they neither belong to Crabs nor to crustaceans but are simply called Horseshoe crabs for convenience set in the past.

These weird looking creatures have 10 eyes that are divided into lateral simple eyes, lateral compound eyes, median simple eyes. These are all located on the shell and tail. These can sense light along with their prey and predators.

Its compound eyes are almost like human eyes as they have thousands of receptors, cones, and rods, and notably larger than human eyes.

Scorpions: 12 eyes

Scorpion is an arachnid usually nocturnal type that is characterized by a pair of grasping pincers, eight legs, a curved tail with a sting, and varies in size and color. These mainly inhabited deserts but some are distributed all over the world except Antarctica.

These arachnids called Scorpion have 12 eyes, 2 prominent eyes on top of their head while the other 5 eyes located on each side of the lateral body. These eyes can recognize the movement and differences between dark and light.

Even though the Scorpion has as many as 12 eyes, they are not as good as its other arachnid members such as spiders.

Box Jellyfish: 24 Eyes

The Box jellyfish is called Cubozoan because of their box-like appearance with a square shape when viewed from the above and has 24 eyes, that’s pretty interesting for an animal without brains.

Unlike other jellyfish, Box jellyfish have 24 well-developed eyes, that is, evenly distributed at four sides of their bodies; 6 eyes at each side of their bodies. Out of 24 eyes, there are 20 simple eyes that can only detect light and dark. while the other four eyes can form images.

Its eyes have upper and lower lenses, capable of image formation, and look like the eyes of vertebrates like humans.-that’s quite impressive for an animal without a brain, heart, blood, etc.

Scallops: 200 Eyes

Scallop, called Common Rock Scallop, including about 300 types of scallop have hundreds of eyes, these are marine bivalves and belong to molluscs that are usually consumed as a delicacy.

A Common Rock Scallop is a marine animals with more than two eyes, and is expected to have 200 tiny eyes that act like telescopes located at the edges of the mantles. 

These eyes have a concave mirror for focusing light, pupils that are sensitive to incoming light thus can dilate or contract.

Chiton: Up to 1000 Eyes

Chiton is also known as sea cradles, coat-of-mail shells, loricates, polyplacophorans, a marine mollusc with 1,000 tiny eyes that have turtle-like shells made by overlapping of many small shells or plates.

Chiton are sea animals with more than two eyes, which actually have 1,000 eyes each made up of ocelli that are located on their shells that could form focused images and can see objects that are located at 6 feet away from them even in the darkness at the sea bottom.

They can replace damaged eyes by growing new eyes, this ability is present in them throughout their lifetimes.

Which Animal has the Largest Eyes?

The giant squid is a marine animal with the largest eyes in the world, bigger than the eyes of ostriches, elephants. Its eyes are so large, about 11 inches in diameter or 25 cm – almost the size of a football. Another squid called colossal squid has the largest eyes ever recorded, that’s about 27 cm- almost comparable to the size of a common soccer ball.

What Animal has the Largest Number of Eyes?

Chiton has 1,000 eyes, which is a marine animal that belongs to the shelled molluscs found in the bottom of the sea. These eyes are located on their shell and each of them is called ocelli, a simple eye that is mostly transparent and can’t be visible to our naked eyes. Each ocelli has microscopic lenses that are able to form images. All of these eye features enable them to see and quickly respond to prey and predators that are approaching towards them.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_eye