I've had owls on my mind since Sunday.

News articles are still talking about Superb owl highlights, social media was all atwitter talking about the Superb owl, and my friends even threw a Superb owl party, even though they're not usually into that sort of thing.

So, let's talk about owls. Did you know that a group of owls is called a parliament? Or that owls can be found on every continent except Antarctica? They're actually really fascinating creatures, and there's more to them than can be covered in one blog post.

But for now, let's talk about what makes owls truly superb animals.

Huge eyes

Owls' eyes are completely immobile. Instead of having eyeballs, like humans do, their eyes are more like tubes, elongated and held in place by sclerotic rings. Their eyes are forward facing, so this ends up giving them binocular vision that fully focuses on their prey and boosts depth perception. Owls have extraordinary night vision and can spot prey up to half a mile away—but this comes at a cost: owls are farsighted, meaning they can't clearly see things close to their eyes. (If they had reading glasses, they'd be unstoppable.)

But my, what big eyes they have—all the better for seeing their prey in the dark. Because owls' eyes are so big, they have a larger surface area to collect light than other animals. Owls have more rod cells than other animals, and—as recently explained in more detail in my post "5 things you didn't know about how animals see color"—these rod cells help them see in the dark.

Owls also have a structure at the back of each eye called the tapetum lucidum. Basically, light goes into the owls' eyes and hits the rod cells. It then bounces off of the tapetum lucidum to hit the rod cells again, letting the owl see the light twice instead of just once, which effectively turns the night into day for them. Pretty nifty, right?

Finally, owls have three eyelids: one for blinking, one for sleeping, and one for keeping their eyes clean.

Swivel necks

Because owls can't move their eyes, their necks make up for this by being able to swivel a full 270 degrees. It's not quite the full 360 degrees that a cartoon might depict, but it's pretty impressive nonetheless.

If you think about it, though, being able to rotate your neck that far seems kind of nuts. How is this even physically possible? Well, for one thing, owls have a blood-pooling system that collects blood to power their brains and eyes when neck movement cuts off circulation. For another, owls have twice the number of neck vertebrae as other birds: most birds, like humans, have 7 vertebrae, whereas owls have 14. They also have air-cushioned vessel casings so they don't rupture a blood vessel when snapping their neck around to look over their shoulders.



Asymmetric ears

Many owl species have asymmetrical ears. Sometimes this means that their ears are different sizes, and other times it means they're located at different heights on the owl's head.

When the ears are at different heights, it enables them to receive sound at slightly different times, thus pinpointing the location of sounds in multiple dimensions: when a sound is equally loud in both ears, the owl knows it has zeroed in on the source and distance of its prey.

Some species of owl also have a moveable ear flap that they can use to increase or decrease the sound coming to their ears. (Not to be confused with "ear tufts" [pictured on the right], which are adorable but are not actually related to an owl's hearing at all.)

Their flattened faces and the feathers around their faces also funnel sound to the ears, magnifying it so that they can detect even the slightest sound from tiny prey.

So how good is their hearing? A great gray owl sitting on a fencepost can locate a vole running in a tunnel 60 feet away under 18 inches of snow.

Yeah. Maybe don't mess with owls.

Iron grip

Owls have a reversible outer toe that can be pointed forward or backward, depending on the owl's position, to ensure a secure hold on its prey. They also have the ability to lock their toes around an object so that they don't need to continually contract their muscles.

Those are some steel-grip toes right there. Once an owl has caught its prey, that prey isn't going anywhere.

Stealth feathers

Last, but certainly not least, let's talk about owl wings, which are fascinating and inspiring in their own right. They differ from other birds' wings in that they're wider, allowing for more gliding and less flapping—i.e., less noise—but that's not what's so cool about them.

Owls actually have feathers that are different from other birds' for the specific purpose of being stealthy. Along the leading edges of the primary flight feathers are stiff fringes, like the teeth of a comb, and on the trailing edges of the same feathers are soft fringes, more like the frayed edges of a torn piece of cloth. (Check out the above video for a demonstration of the difference between owl feathers and other birds' feathers.) These differently textured feathers serve to break up the wind and reduce turbulence, thus reducing the sound the wings make.

Owl wings are also covered in fluffy down feathers, kind of like velvety fur, that dampen sound even more. These soft feathers absorb high frequency sounds that most prey are sensitive to. The end result is a silent flier that can sneak up on its prey at night, relying more on stealth than on speed.

So to recap, owls have great night vision, specialized swivel necks, incredible hearing, an iron grip, and wings specifically built for stealth. Pretty superb, wouldn’t you agree?