The glow in the eyes of some animals is called eyeshine, and the adjective that describes such shimmering in a cat’s eyes is chatoyant, from French for “cat.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Eyeshine”
At the top of the show, we were talking about cat’s eyes, those reflective markers on roads.
And it made me think of another of my favorite words, which is chatoyant.
Chatoyant. C-H-A-T-O-Y-A-N-T. Chatoyant.
Yes.
Cat-like.
Yep. Yep. Chatoyant means glowing like a cat’s eye.
Oh, chatoyant.
Yeah. And that phenomenon where you see a cat’s eyes glowing is called eye shine.
Eye shine.
I have heard that one.
Yeah.
And it’s because there’s a little membrane behind the retina that reflects light back.
And eye shine is different in all different kinds of animals.
I remember in central Florida, I used to go wolf spider hunting.
They have chatoyant eyes as well?
Yes.
Yes, it’s crazy.
You can look up how to do this on the internet, but I used to do it as a kid looking for wolf spiders and alligators when I would go to a swamp.
Isn’t that cool?
That’s cool.
So in the cartoons, when they show eyes peering out of the darkness, it can actually happen.
Yeah, if you have a flashlight.
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