Reflecting eye thread

[ldg]

I didn't want to hijack Kara Leigh's thread Walter finally came out, but in it she asked

Originally Posted by kara_leigh

Does anyone know why his eyes reflect blue rather than yellow like most cats??

Walter

And when we catch a reflection, it seems most of ours are blue.

Tuxedo


Flowerbelle


Although I did find Tuxedo with yellow too:

 

[ldg]

OK, according to Wikipedia: "Variation in color of cats' eyes in flash photographs is largely due to the reflection of the flash by the tapetum." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_senses

Link for tapetum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum, which says

Eyeshine is a visible effect of the tapetum lucidum. When a light is shone into the eye of an animal having a tapetum lucidum, the pupil appears to glow. Eyeshine can be seen in many animals, in nature and in flash photographs. In low light, a hand-held flashlight is sufficient to produce eyeshine that is highly visible to humans (despite our inferior night vision); this technique, spotlighting, is used by naturalists and hunters to search for animals at night. Eyeshine occurs in a wide variety of colors including white, blue, green, yellow, pink and red. However, because eyeshine is a form of iridescence, the color varies slightly with the angle at which it is seen and the color of the source light.

Very interesting, actually!

 

[kara_leigh]

LOL I looked at the tapetum Wiki description too. In it, it says:

White eyeshine occurs in many fish, especially walleye; blue eyeshine occurs in many mammals such as horses; yellow eyeshine occurs in mammals such as cats, dogs, and raccoons; and red eyeshine occurs in rodents, opossums and birds

Since, up until now, I've only ever seen yellow eyeshine in cats, it concerned me. Nora has always had yellow eyeshine, except once when she was about 9 months old she developed a cloudy eye and it reflected differently. We took pictures but I can't for the life of me find them right now. It cleared on it's own and her eyes are back to normal now.

This is her typical eyeshine


And Thomas


*shrug*

 

[GoldyCat]

When Shareena was a kitten her eyes always reflected blue.


Now they usually reflect green


I don't think it has anything to do with her health.

 

[my4llma]

I love that picture of Tuxedo with those glowing blue eyes!!!!!!

 

[rad65]

Thanks for posting this, it was really interesting!

 

[-_aj_-]

Originally Posted by rad65

Thanks for posting this, it was really interesting!

I can't really remember how my two react

 

[natalie_ca]

Chynna's eyes reflected red. Abby seems to be silver for some reason.

 

[ldg]

Found one where Billy's got green eyeshine:

 

[lovewhiskers]

Found one where Billy's got green eyeshine

And of course he is right next to Chumley Chum

 

[wellingtoncats]

Such an interesting thread. I'll have to dig around and see what my kitties eye shine is like. Although I tend not to use the flash when taking pictures.

 

[momto4kitties]

How cool are those! I have to check and see if I have some pics to share

 

[northernglow]

I've noticed that most 'new' cameras will make kitten eyes reflect blue.
If I use flash (which I rarely do), it will make yellow eyes reflect yellow, with maybe a greenish tint, and green eyes reflect blue. And blue eyes of course are red.

Examples of yellow, green and blue eyes taken with my camera:

 

[missymoo1]

Tuxedo,Walter and Flowerbelle are all beautiful cat's

 

[ldg]

Northernglow, thanks for that - also very interesting!

And while Luna is beautiful as always - that red eye shine is very scary!

 

[northernglow]

Originally Posted by LDG

Northernglow, thanks for that - also very interesting!

And while Luna is beautiful as always - that red eye shine is very scary!

She's a cute demon kitty.

 

[GoldyCat]

I'm pretty sure I've never gotten red-eye from any of my kitties, but then I don't have any blue-eyed kits.
Here's a scary one of Miss Patchwillow. One blue and one laser beam. Can't really call that a color.

 

[GoldyCat]

Maybe this should be one of the calendar subjects for next year.

 

[kara_leigh]

I found the pictures of Nora when she had a cloudy eye. I guess it didn't reflect a different color, just that one eye reflected and the other didn't. It was REALLY weird.

This is the best pic we could get to show the cloudiness b/c she wouldn't hold still.


With one eye reflecting, the other not.


What was weird was that her cloudy eye would reflect but her good eye wouldn't. *shrug* She was about the same age as the boys (7 or so months) when that happened. She looks so different now! lol

 

[ldg]

There was a thread for Laser Beam cats - which is why I remembered we had so many blue eye shines!

How's this for eyeshine?

I think we've got pinkish, green, and "regular."