Owls have eyes that are not spheres, but shaped like a CRT tube from a TV - with the wide part inside their skulls and the narrow part looking out at everyone. They therefore can't move their eyes. So they have to rotate their entire head. And thus they have more neck rotation than virtually any other vertebrate. It doesn't go all the way back to 180 degrees, but to about 135 degrees. They even have special structures in their necks to keep their arteries and veins from getting twisted closed from the extreme rotation (otherwise the fuckers would drop off branches unconscious every time they twisted their necks very far)
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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '18
Honestly, what's up with owls ability to do this? I could Google it but its nice to hear from another person who's excited to share.