Why do owls turn their heads so far around?
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What do you think an owl might look for when it turns its head?
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Transcript
An owl sits on a tree branch, watching the woods. How can it look so far to the side?
An owl’s big, tube-shaped eyes stay pointed ahead in their sockets. That means an owl cannot move its eyes around like you can.
So an owl turns its neck to look beside it or behind it. It has more neck vertebrae, the small bones in its neck, and loose joints.
Special neck blood vessels can hold extra blood and connect around bends. They help blood reach the brain as its head turns up to about 270 degrees.
So that’s why owls swivel their heads so far: their eyes stay still, but their special necks help them look around.
For grown-ups: the science
Owls turn their heads far because their eyes stay facing forward, so their special necks help them look around.
Owls have large, tubular eyes that are relatively fixed in their sockets, limiting eye movement compared with humans. They compensate with 14 cervical vertebrae, flexible neck joints, and specialized blood vessels, including reservoirs and connecting vessels, that support blood flow to the brain during head rotations of up to about 270 degrees in either direction.