Eyes that shine. Hearing the grass move. Night-beasts.

They do not see in the dark. They see in the dim, fragmented light of a forest at night. At shift onset the pupil opens to eight or nine millimetres against a normal dark-adapted maximum of about six: roughly double the gathering area. In parallel, norepinephrine at Lycian-shift concentration hits beta-adrenergic receptors on rod outer segments and raises phototransduction gain. Two timescales, one result: usable scotopic vision without a tapetum, without a wolf's eye.

Audition is simpler. The superior olivary complex takes direct norepinephrine and sharpens the temporal resolution that spatial localisation runs on. Sensory systems come online before the rest of the processing hierarchy has adapted. The folklore of a moment of confusion and aggression at onset is that mismatch, reported from outside.