Since we're pretty much done with the Jacob's bear, I thought I throw these out for some image analysis and thought. (And yes, I just can't quite stay away from here...yet. The weaning process is much more difficult than anticipated!)

These are all images I took of the same individual animal within 15 minutes of each other, from different angles and distances. Taken with a cheap pocket cam and flash, unaltered, but cropped. I'm not suggesting these are a sasquatch (obviously) and am curious how others might interpret them, but am mostly interested in what we can learn from them. So please speculate on what you think they actually are, and please do more than just guess or at least explain your rationale for your guess.

I'll reveal more as we go, but thought this might be fun.

Apeman

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I'll guess Lemur, or possibly a Chinchilla

I think the top left image is particularly interesting. As for animal it could be anything so I'm guessing ground hog.

left side: spiders ? tree frogs ? crocilgators ?

dav

Because they are so perfectly round, I'd go with some kind of owl.

Very hard to make an educated guess without any context information. How far apart were the eyes? How high off the ground? How far away from you? Was the area wooded or in a cleared area?

I love image analysis!

Hmmm, Dav said crocligators? Were they in the water or along a shore line?

My guess...

bushbaby
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Rimmer and Mr. Flibble?

Which brings up another question. Apeman, were you in Africa when you took these pictures?

1) my guess is that it's a nocturnal animal

2) it's an animal that you could easily approach

3) the eyes are round and "front" facing, so probably a mammal with stereoscopic vision

so my guess is that it's a large bat (e.g fruit bat)

When I brighten the one on the top left I can kinda make out little ears so Im guessing Rat or squirrel

I'll go with owl too, because they are so round and voluminous.

They're almost too round-looking to be sitting inside sockets, in a couple of the pics, so because of that I'll guess spider.

I'm going to say frog...

Barry Manilow?

I'm thinkin' "DOG"

HAH!

Thanks everyone for playing (even if most of you didn't follow my request of explaining your guesses! )

I won't belabor this much longer, and it's nothing shocking, but before I try to make my ultimate point, I'll give some of you the requested next round:
I took these in a semi-wooded area of northern CA 3-4 nights ago;
the eyes were more than 8 feet off the ground;
I was between about 10 and 30 feet away;
it wasn't making any noise when I was shooting these;
and, based on that experience, I could only estimate the interocular distance at between ~2" and 6" inches (though of course I actually know more accurately from knowing the animal).

The animal did move, twice, as did I a number of times, which explains most of the size variation, but don't bother asking how it moved because that will be part of the reveal.

Apeman

Lack of reflection tells me it can see well at night, bats are too small, IO dimension of raccoons, possums, skunks, rats too small

8' off the ground implies it was in a tree or on a man made object

Not in the act of flying because it only moved twice

Semi-wooded area, not settled? old clear cut? or clearing? or Sparsely populated area?

2-6" eye interocular is quite a range no help there other than eliminating squirrels.

The high range of 6" leads me to believe it grows to be large. again why the large spread in dimension? you didn't know the age of the subject

Silence feature doesn't help

What large, unshocking, tree dwelling, nocturnal, NCali animal moves in a way that would give away it's identity if Apeman revealed that feature?

GREAT HORNED OWL, the only animal with the large enough interocular dimension that has a unique form of travel in Northern California, all the others are marine/aquatic or mammals with unextraordinary forms of locomotion.

Thanks for the info, Apeman!
(My emphasis)

What?! There's a point!?!? (My smart@$$ comment)

Rules out bushbaby, lemur ...

So it was either in a tree or a sasquatch. Rules out dog, I guess.

Hmmmm, Rules out Barry Manilow.

So probably not a spider, rat, frog, or squirrel, guinea pig, crocilgator, Rimmer and Mr. Flibble, ground hog, chinchilla or bat ... Owl is sounding pretty good, a big owl.



I'll have to go with owl also.

Ok, I won't screw with you guys anymore, here it is in full flash:

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Sorry, couldn't resist.

No, here's an enhanced fuller crop of the really intriguing shot. I'll add my comments later about my "point" and why I think these are somewhat interesting. Oh yeah, it is indeed a great horned owl.

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Apeman

Excellent exercise.
The lack of any noticeable illumination of the body of the owl, shows how little light is really needed to get eye shine(I know it was a flash..but the point is, a much dimmer source then is needed to show the body, showed JUST the eyes).
I still think this is a likely explanation for a lot of the "red eye" reports. Perhaps not all of them, but likely the majority.
I think it's almost certainly the explaination for the mysterious "self glowing" eye reports. As can be seen...it's possible that an owls eyes could reflect back red with not much more then ambient light, if the angle was "just right".

Click to view attachment Holy owl-cat, Apeman!!! I bet they'd like to see this over on Bitter Monk's 'Let's Get Freaky' thread.

Thanks apeman!, I was guessing ringtail, but not ruling out about 10 other animals.

After that info I think its an owl.

Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to this, but NW already made one of my points above. The owl was also hardly ever looking directly at me so the shine can get a lot brighter. Here are some deer which I think show a step beyond the owl- I can only bring out some of the body of the closest deer with some photo manipulation, the others have plenty of eyeshine but reveal nothing about their bodies, even in an open field.

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I also just want to note how red an owl's eyes can be, and how you can get some weird effects like the bluish dots in the first images (which I think are because of a different reflective part of the retina).

I keep trying to get more eye shots of owls because there are a few in my neighborhood that I see often on my early am and late pm dogwalks, but like so much of the wildlife where I am they are so tame/habituated that they hardly ever bother to look at me even with my dog. I'll also point out and remind everyone that you really shouldn't blast animals like owls in the face with a flash because their eyes are so sensitive that it can be harmful, but I'm trying to be pretty careful of that and rarely get close enough for that to be an issue with my little pocket camera...I think? They are also usually sitting near street lights so I don't think they're totally dilated when I see them, which might be another limiting factor in how bright the shine is that I can get?

Anyway, this is a little ongoing project, and I also intend to measure some of the deer distances to get an idea of the limits of the eyeshine effect with them. Serious science here in the Headlands!

Apeman

Sorry...one more image to share. I should probably start an "eyeshine" catalog thread, but since my camecam thread went over like a lead zeppelin....

Anyway, here's a young blacktail buck from last night showing a really crazy effect. The bottom left photo is totally untouched, and the close-up is only enhanced for brightness and contrast. And the lower right shows an enhancement to bring out the shape of the deer (note how huge the eyes seem). The spiraling, or circling, is in the image though I think it might be an effect from going into digital zoom. The less zoomed and slightly more distant shots show some green variation but nothing like this. I may post more later but have three mysterious other sets of unexpected eyes in the other shots that I need to go and try to figure out!

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Apeman

Either that or you've got yourself a Chernobyl deer.

(Edited to add: If the eyes spin, will I become hypnotized?)

To close this out, turns out the above weird spiraling is NOT from going into digital zoom (camera wasn't set for it). And I confirmed that the other eyes with deer photo I mentioned were 3 raccoons. Kind of funny because I'd have been skeptical of anyone else saying they had 3 raccoons in a shot with a deer but sure enough, all attracted to an apple tree. I've since found a bunch of similar menageries on hunting game cam sites.

-A

The first picture looks like the animal's head is cocked to the side. This would make me think it is a dog.

Deer with night vision goggles

I would think that an Elk's eyeshine coule really throw peopla for a spin if they were to see it, due to height, and keeping in mind that for some reason everything is taller at night, LOL.

Just wondering if it was a diffraction pattern, if the reflected light was sufficiently monochromatic.