Nocturnal
Species active after dark, with senses adapted to low light.
What it means
Living by night demands different equipment: eyes with more light-sensitive cells, sharp hearing, a keen sense of smell, tactile whiskers or, in bats and some cetaceans, echolocation. In exchange you gain access to prey that stays hidden by day and avoid both the heat and the daytime predators. It is a pattern spread right across the tree of life, and it explains why many common animals are all but invisible to anyone walking about in daylight.
Species
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