Harry'd need binoculars to see what new comrades can with naked eye

Sydney: When Prince Harry begins patrolling with Australia's mostly indigenous NORFORCE regiment, he will need binoculars to see what his new comrades can with the naked eye, a professor said on Wednesday.

The Northern Territory-based unit patrols rugged outback areas, and is the first deployment in Prince Harry's month-long attachment to the Australian armed forces.

Extensive research has found outback indigenous people have eyesight four times better than non-indigenous people, Xinhua news agency cited Hugh Taylor from the University of Melbourne's Indigenous Eye Health unit as telling the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Taylor said it has been long recognised by international eyesight experts that these indigenous people have the best eyesight in the world -- calling it "super sight".

"The super sight is the way their retina and brain is wired, and they are probably like that from childhood," he said.

"There may well be a number of the Aboriginal soldiers in NORFORCE who have much better vision than mainstream Australians or regular soldiers.

"So if Prince Harry is out with some of these Aboriginal people, he may well find that their vision is actually far better than his.

"He may have to get a pair of binoculars to see what they see with their naked eye."

NORFORCE has worked with navy and customs ships patrolling Australia's northern waters looking for boats smuggling humans.

Taylor surmised that the ability was an evolutionary development given they were a hunter-gathering people for tens of thousands of years.