Random thought of the day. Does any current interchangeable lens system have face detect AF that works on various animals? Maybe more correctly, it should be eye-detect. I think I've seen it in a compact, or was it a phone? But just curious if it has made its way into higher end models, and if so, how well does it work?
The application I'm thinking of is when you can get relatively tight shots of the head, and depth of field starts to drop where you don't necessarily want to stop down for more. Regardless of phase or contrast system, unless the AF point is exactly on the eyes, they can be off. Detecting the eyes would help in this context, for a moving subject you don't necessarily want to be manually shifting a point around nor be limited in the framing by fixing the point.
<a class="bbc_url" href="http://snowporing.deviantart.com/">dA</a> Canon 7D2, 7D, 5D2, 600D, 450D, 300D IR modified, 1D, EF-S 10-18, 15-85, EF 35/2, 85/1.8, 135/2, 70-300L, 100-400L, MP-E65, Zeiss 2/50, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300/2.8, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Olympus E-P1, Panasonic 20/1.7, Sony HX9V, Fuji X100.
I'm not sure wether the eye-detection in some Fujifilm cameras and soon enough also in more of them needs face detection first hand. "When there's no face, why bother to look for the eye?" And therefore I think human faces have different characteristics. I'd be surprised if it'd work with animals faces (except monkeys), but who knows?
The only thing I'm concerned about: There might be other shiny, spherical and concentrical objects around the animal - baubles and beads - so how to find the eye?
In some sample pictures about the new X-Pro 2 there was a dog with two independent eye colors...
http://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/5097268292/fujifilm-x-pro2-real-world-samples/4770042455
In the generic case, the camera must first find if there is there a face, which by definition include something that count as an eye or eyes. With humans, you might have a more limited scope than every possible animal. Even if you limit yourself to mammals, that would give you something to narrow down on. Maybe including exotic sea life or bugs would be overcomplicating things.
Why didn't I search before? I just found this rather amusing Fuji page stating which types of dogs and cats work with their system:
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/pet/
<a class="bbc_url" href="http://snowporing.deviantart.com/">dA</a> Canon 7D2, 7D, 5D2, 600D, 450D, 300D IR modified, 1D, EF-S 10-18, 15-85, EF 35/2, 85/1.8, 135/2, 70-300L, 100-400L, MP-E65, Zeiss 2/50, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300/2.8, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Olympus E-P1, Panasonic 20/1.7, Sony HX9V, Fuji X100.
So you need to replace your home-rhino with one of those toy-dogs? 
should be quite feasible since it is a firmware thing, however usres must be interested in this feature for developpers to invest in it
"a firmware thing" is not necessarily a more easy hack than hardware - if you imagine all the objects looking much like eyes (included our lenses) it must be a huge library or a highly developed algorithm (which needs processing power...).
If I think about it, there's also a tracking mode to follow a specific subject - I can define an eye as such a thing, but it doesn't discover "Eye" in a scene because it's not looking for it.
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