Some animals are born without their sense of sight and can still thrive in their natural environments.
At times, these creatures may dwell in dark environments, while others may depend on other sensors or entirely come up with new sensory organs to compensate for the lack of vision.
Blind Animals
Eyeless Shrimp
Despite their name, eyeless shrimps actually have eyes upon birth. However, they end up losing their eyes and developing a light sensor within their body as they enter adulthood.
Their primitive organs for senses can just recognize light. However, they are effective for guiding the shrimp, as it uses infrared to navigate its environment.
Star-Nosed Mole
Interestingly, the star-nosed mole is hunted by foxes, hawks, cats, and just about everything. The fact that it is considered prey by animals may make it seem like the blind animal's survival could be impossible.
However, the mole actually has protruding fleshy tentacles on its face. These serve as compensation for eyes that allow the creature to pinpoint earth vibrations and sense some electrical fields.
It uses the tentacles to prod around a dozen times in a single second. The creature maps out a whole vision of its surrounding world. Such a vision includes the presence of its prey and predators.
Essentially, this creature trades its eyesight for superpower touch.
Naked Mole-Rat
Technically speaking, the naked mole rat is not blind. However, its eyes are too tiny to hold any functional value.
Rather than depending on its eyes, a naked mole rat depends on its four other senses for navigating below and above the ground. They can also see well both in the light and dark.
These creatures also live in environments where having bad eyesight is not a disadvantage. They have also been able to come up with strange habits that would suit their environment.
Texas Blind Salamander
The Texas blind salamander works without vision. However, there are still two black spots over its face, taking the place where the eyes should typically be.
Nevertheless, these amphibians can monitor water pressure changes so they can pick up prey and detect nearby predators.
They also dwell in isolated habitats, enabling them to be placed at the top of the food chain, which also covers shrimp and snails.
However, due to human disruption and their limited habitats, Texas blind salamanders are considered highly endangered.
Similar to other salamander family members, the Texas blind salamander is also deaf.
Water.
Mexican Tetra
Since birth, Mexican tetras have been forced to live on touch. In fact, they are actually born with eyes that later become genetically into sockets for fat deposit storage as time passes.
However, on top of losing pigmentation and eyesight, the skeleton of this cavefish actually mutates as time passes. This forces them to have a counterclockwise way of swimming.
They also use swimming patterns that match a cava channel's geography.
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