The Biological Clockwork: How Life Forms Experience Time at Different Speeds

Time perception varies markedly across taxa, reflecting species-specific neurobiology, metabolism, and ecology. Here we review current empirical evidence indicating that animals and even non-neural life forms experience time at different subjective scales. We surveyed literature on visual temporal resolution (critical flicker fusion), circadian rhythms, and timing behavior across diverse taxa. Insects (e.g. cockroaches, bees), with small size and high metabolic rates, exhibit extremely high flicker fusion thresholds (hundreds of Hz), whereas many mammals (e.g. mice) show much lower thresholds (tens of Hz). Birds have generally high temporal resolution (e.g. chickens ~87–100 Hz; peregrine falcons ~129 Hz). Aquatic species vary with environment: diurnal, shallow-water fishes and cephalopods often have high thresholds (tens of Hz) while deep-sea or nocturnal species show lower values. Plants lack neural perception but employ robust circadian clocks (∼24 h cycles) to time physiology (leaf movements, flowering). Even artificial systems implement internal clocks or sampling rates, but without subjective qualia. We synthesize these findings to argue that “time” is biologically experienced, not universally sensed: small, fast-metabolizing organisms parse the world in finer temporal detail (subjectively “slower” time), while larger, slower animals (and plants) operate on coarser temporal scales. These differences have ecological and evolutionary implications for behavior, as discussed.