History Main / MysteriousAnimalSenses

** In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', uplifted wolf Florence's poor color vision and very acute sense of smell are handled similarly.

** In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', Florence's color vision and sense of smell are handled similarly.

* Spoofed in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' book ''Discworld/MovingPictures'', where the talking Holy Wood animals are annoyed that Victor keeps referring to them as having "mysterious animal senses".

A [[BigBadassWolf wolf protagonist]]? Not only can he discover your life history from one whiff of your clothes, he can also tell what color hat you're wearing from a mile away, and hear the sound of snow falling through a half foot of steel. And probably be able to [[EvilDetectingDog sense ghosts]] and the innate innocence of AllLovingHero, to boot.

A [[BigBadassWolf wolf protagonist]]? Not only can he discover your life history from one whiff of your clothes, he can also tell what color hat you're wearing from a mile away, and hear the sound of snow falling through a half foot of steel. And probably be able to [[EvilDetectingDog sense ghosts]] and the innate innocence of TheMessiah, to boot.

See also SuperSenses and AnimalEyes. Compare SenseFreak. Super-awesome animal-like senses are often employed as one of the reasons why OurElvesAreBetter (PettingZooPeople as well) and the lack of those makes humans PunyEarthlings in comparison.

!![[AC:{{Real Life}}]]
* Real Life is a subversion in that a lot of animals that folklore says are "colorblind" don't actually have monochromatic vision, though their color vision isn't exactly the same as that of humans. Dogs, for example, are rather ''better'' than humans at distinguishing between hues of blue, but have more trouble telling orange from red. However, many animals do seem to impart rather less importance to color than humans do... cats were thought to be colorblind until researchers realized they were just ignoring it completely and relying on their sense of smell instead (if it didn't smell like food, the cats couldn't care less what color it was, because ''cats'').

While many animals ''do'' have interesting and novel abilities, they also tend to lack some of the senses humans consider to be completely mundane - tri-chromatic vision most obviously (but not exclusively). And no single animal has all the nifty keen abilities you saw on that one Discovery Channel special.

* Averted in the ''{{Silverwing}}'' series - the bat main characters view the environment almost exclusively through echolocation, and colors besides silver are essentially never mentioned.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': As a [[SpeaksFluentAnimal Wolfbrother]] Perrin can see and hear at a great range and smell people's emotions

* When Momo the lemur's POV is used in ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'', the view is bubble-distorted and tinted green to show less nuanced color vision and a wider visual range. There's also the Shirshu, that uses scent alone, which is shown as different color trails on a grainy black background, and pouring a bunch of perfume next to it made it entirely disoriented.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', though the protagonist (a genegineered wolf) does have superhuman smell, she must defer to human as to what are "good" smells ("[[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff700/fv00646.htm Decaying Buffalo...]] There's a scent that... Well... You just want to roll in it."). She's also colorblind, and mentions that she hears in a different range to humans (shouting to overcome a high-pitched noise her coworkers can't hear, for instance).
** Example for colorblindness shown in [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00209.htm this strip]]: "It's always difficult trying to appear attractive to a sense you don't have".

* Averted in the ''Silverwing'' series - the bat main characters view the environment almost exclusively through echolocation, and colors besides silver are essentially never mentioned.

!!Examples:

* Spoofed in the ''{{Discworld}}'' book ''Discworld/MovingPictures'', where the talking Holy Wood animals are annoyed that Victor keeps referring to them as having "mysterious animal senses".

* In the WhateleyUniverse, after Merry gets turned into a [[WereCat werecat]], she goes color-blind.

** Also, [[SnakePeople snakes]] have poor hearing.

* A similar joke is used for a WireDilemma in ''CatsAndDogs''.

* ''TheSimpsons'' and ''{{Rugrats}}'' also use odd visual filters when using an animal's POV on occasion.

* Spoofed in the ''{{Discworld}}'' book ''Moving Pictures'', where the talking Holy Wood animals are annoyed that Victor keeps referring to them as having "mysterious animal senses".

* ''{{Animorphs}}'' usually put a lot of (relatively believable) detail into the differences in the way the protagonists' senses worked in their various animal forms.

* In DarwinsSoldiers, Dr. Kerzach, a anthropomorphic cassowary has pretty much no sense of smell.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* In a non-fictional subversion, bats were variously hypothesized to possess either phenomenal night vision or (once blindfold experiments shot that down) a sense of touch so keen that they could feel distortions in air density from nearby objects. Only when earplug tests revealed they needed to hear to navigate was the mystery of their MysteriousAnimalSenses (echolocation) solved.

* In ''KevinAndKell'', it's occasionally mentioned that Kell(a wolf) is color-blind, and characters are frequently shown perceiving the world primarily through scent.

* In the WhateleyUniverse, after Merry gets turned into a werecat, she goes color-blind.

See also SuperSenses. Compare SenseFreak. Super-awesome animal-like senses are often employed as one of the reasons why OurElvesAreBetter (PettingZooPeople as well) and the lack of those makes humans PunyEarthlings in comparison.

* In ''{{Freefall}}'', though the protagonist (a genegineered wolf) does have superhuman smell, she must defer to human as to what are "good" smells ("[[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff700/fv00646.htm Decaying Buffalo...]] There's a scent that... Well... You just want to roll in it."). She's also colorblind, and mentions that she hears in a different range to humans (shouting to overcome a high-pitched noise her coworkers can't hear, for instance).

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