The prevailing view holds that species such as mice whose retinae lack high-acuity specializations (afoveates) generate gaze shifts driven by head movements followed by “recentering” saccades ( Land and Nilsson, 2012). Revealing these strategies is essential to understanding mouse visual ethology and the underlying neural mechanisms. Mice are an increasingly important model organism in vision research, yet the strategies they use to shift their gaze remain incompletely understood. Gaze shifts employ head and eye movement coupling strategies that depend on context and can vary between species ( Goldring et al., 1996 Land, 2019 Land and Nilsson, 2012 Populin, 2006 Populin and Rajala, 2011 Populin et al., 2004a Ruhland et al., 2013 Tollin et al., 2005). Natural environments are complex and dynamic, and animals frequently redirect their gaze to scrutinize salient sensory stimuli. Our findings uncover diversity in mouse gaze shifts and provide a foundation for studying head-eye coupling. Thus, mice make sensory-guided, SC-dependent gaze shifts led by directed saccades. Optogenetic perturbations revealed SC drives touch-evoked gaze shifts. We found tactile stimuli evoke gaze shifts involving directed saccades that precede attempted head rotations. We investigated this possibility by tracking eye and attempted head movements in a head-fixed preparation that eliminates head movement-related sensory cues. However, microstimulating mouse superior colliculus (SC) elicits directed head and eye movements that resemble SC-dependent sensory-guided gaze shifts made by other species, raising the possibility mice generate additional types of gaze shifts. These “recentering” saccades are attributed to head movement-related vestibular and optokinetic cues. In the prevailing view, mouse gaze shifts are led by head rotations that trigger compensatory, brainstem-mediated eye movements, including saccades to reset the eyes.

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