As if a whitetail deer’s nose isn’t difficult enough to fool, new research suggests that our favorite big-game animal has eyes in the back of its head. Not literally, of course, but like that schoolteacher who could see you passing notes or chewing gun when her back was turned, deer can actually see you draw your bow when they’re browsing for acorns or taking part in another head-down activity. Here’s the fascinating (if frustrating) data,as reported by the QDMA.

Here’s a fun and cool experiment in deer biology: the next time you sit down to a meal, first look around for any potential threats, like predators or fire or your loudmouthed Uncle Floyd who wants to join your hunting club. All safe? Next, bend your head down and press your nose to your biscuit, or backstrap, or whatever’s on your plate. Now, while touching your nose to your food, look around again for danger. See any? No, you don’t. All you can see is a big, blurry biscuit and maybe a little of Uncle Floyd’s Hawaiian shirt in your periphery. And now he’s got you cornered.

Deer do not have this problem. When their noses are in clover, or acorns, or browsing anything else at ground level, they can still see danger approaching almost as well as they can when their heads are raised. That’s because their eyes can do a trick called cyclovergence. Before you roll your eyes at this, let’s look at what we know about deer vision… [continued]

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