Smaller animals perceive time as if it's passing in slow motion, a study from the journal Animal Behavior found.
According to BBC News, animals are capable of seeing movement on a more accurate timescale than bigger creatures can, enabling them to quickly get away from large predators. Kevin Healy, lead author at Trinity College in Dublin told BBC News the maneuver determines the fate of the smaller animal.
"The ability to perceive time on very small scales may be the difference between life and death for fast-moving organisms such as predators and their prey," he said.
Insects and small birds can notice more information in just one second in comparison to a much larger animal such as an elephant. When bigger animals were tested, researchers were found to miss things that their smaller counterparts quickly spotted.
Golden mantled ground squirrels, starlings, and pigeons were found to have the fastest timing.
The starling, or small bird for example, lives in large groups and creates giant swirling flocks, which is thought to be connected to its need to supervise other birds in the group and not fly into each other.
Another species, the tiger beetle, was found to run quicker than its eyes could keep up with. The team of researchers reasoned this had something to do with its need to stop and see where the prey it was, that it was trying to avoid.
As part of its research, scientists viewed variations of time perception in many different animals. Data was also collected from other teams who had previously utilized the critical flicker fusion frequency technique, which measures how fast an animal's eye can process light.
Andrew Jackson, a co-author of the study told BBC News researchers are beginning to see how animals differ from humans in terms of speed and time.
"We are beginning to understand that there is a whole world of detail out there that only some animals can perceive and it's fascinating to think of how they might perceive the world differently to us," Jackson said.
