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How do seals see under the sea?
Answers for Globle, Metazooa, Elemingle and more from May 19 - May 25
Abe Train
May 26, 2025
Coming to your inbox every Monday with a brand new fun-fact and all the answers to Trainwreck Labs games from the past week.
This week, we have…
Coming soon: Metazooa Live!
A fun fact inspired by Metazooa
Answers to last week's games
Reader survey
Coming soon: Metazooa Live!
Turn your phone into a nature detective tool at Toronto’s High Park! Metazooa: Live is a scavenger hunt where you photograph plants, animals, and fungi around you. The app instantly identifies each species and builds your personal Tree of Life in real-time.
How many of High Park's 1,000+ species can you discover? Snap, identify, and watch your evolutionary tree grow with every shot.
How do seals see under the sea?
Seals’ superior underwater sight gives them a huge advantage at hide-and-seek.
If you've ever tried opening your eyes underwater, you know that everything appears blurry without a scuba mask or goggles. But if you were to look through the eyes of a seal (Metazooa answer for May 23), you would see very clearly. Seal eyes have adapted to see better underwater than above water in bright light. They have round lenses, like fish, and a large iris. Above water, the iris closes the pupil to a small pinpoint to maintain clear vision. Seals have even adapted to see in low lighting with a reflective lining in the eye similar to a cat's, which amplifies weak light underwater.
Why can't we see underwater as well as seals? It comes down to light and refraction. Our corneas are denser than air, causing light to bend and enabling us to focus clearly on land. Water, however, is substantially denser than air, so underwater our eyes lose their refractive power, causing everything to appear out of focus. Fish and marine mammals solve this differently - their spherical lenses do most of the focusing work since their corneas provide little refractive power underwater.
Interestingly, vision often plays a secondary role to other senses for marine animals. Seals have better hearing than humans and use distinctive calls to find each other, especially when pups get separated from their mothers. Many underwater creatures rely on echolocation, vibration detection, or chemical cues for hunting and navigation.
Learn more: Wildlife Online
Trivia
What allows seals to dive to extreme depths without their eyes being damaged by water pressure? |
Answers to last week's games
Monday, May 19 to Sunday, May 25.
Globle
| Globle: Capitals
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Chronogram
| Fictogram
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Metazooa
| Metaflora
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Linxicon
The following are the shortest paths from last week:
#461 definitely → decision → game → sport → quarterback
#462 weight → weights → gym → mall
#463 ghost → movie → watch → let
#464 whereas → argument → defend → armed
#465 should → ought → obligation → assignment → colleague
#466 psychologist → mathematics → calculating → approximate → roughly
#467 get → getting → aging → ancient
#468 Play now!
Elemingle
#117 Cesium
#118 Bromine
#119 Xenon
#120 Hassium
#121 Holmium
#122 Roentgenium
#123 Einsteinium
#124 Play now!
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
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