Forward facing eyes, like yours or lynx's, work together and are better able to tell distances and the sizes of objects. Prey animals, like snowshoe hare or deer have eyes on the sides of their head. With eyes on the sides of their heads, they can see in almost any direction. This helps them escape from danger. Rods and cones make up the eyes.
Cones help see color and rods detect light.
Cats' eyes have more rods than human eyes. They can see better in the dark than people can. A cat can see in one-fifth the amount of light that people can. Since cats have more rods in their eyes, they have fewer cones. This means cats cannot see color as well as people can.