But in many cases, they also have these really brightly colored or variably colored eyes,” he says.Īnd, like feathers, dramatic eyes can be found in even the most common species. student at Louisiana State University and lead author on the new study. “When we think about bird coloration, we’re almost always thinking about feather coloration: A cardinal is red, a Blue Jay is blue,” says Eamon Corbett, an ornithology Ph.D. And, somewhat surprisingly, scientists know very little about the hows and whys behind all this variety.Ī recent study shines a spotlight on the diversity of avian eye color while calling on scientists to further investigate the incredible array of hues: red, yellow, blue, pink, white. And, don’t forget to send us pictures as we document these to learn more about cats of the Serengeti.Feathers steal the show, but there’s another feature every bird has that also comes in a rainbow of colors: their eyes. No matter which species, their eyes are gorgeous. Next time you are on safari, try and check out the eye colour of the cats you see. This condition is called heterochromia and is much more common in human beings, sometimes resulting in different coloured eyes. Sometimes we see leopards with irises that show two rings of colour in the same eye, usually brown and green. In fact, albino lions sometimes occur in the wild and usually have light blue eyes. Albino cats do not have pink eyes like most other animals. Leopards and caracals both have blue and yellow eye colours from time to time, although green and copper are the most commonly seen colours. Interestingly amongst his offspring, we saw yellow, blue and copper eyes in adult spotted servals. Yellow eyes occur due to low levels of melanin. For example, Manja, the famous melanistic black serval living in Olmara Camp has high levels of melanin in its dark skin and fur but yellow eyes. There is no direct correlation between the fur colour and the eye colour. It is interesting to observe that melanin affects the eyes and fur differently. Generally, adult eye colour comes down to genetics the more melanin, the amino acid that controls the colour of skin, fur, and eyes, the darker the eyes. When they are between 6 weeks and three months old, their eye colour changes, as it does in humans, to their adult eye colouration. They open their eyes after 3-4 days, and at that time, their eye colour is a beautiful blue. To complicate matters, the eyes of all cat species change colour with age. On the other hand, leopards and our smaller cats, the serval, the caracal, and the African wild cat show a wide range of colours varying from blue to green, yellow, orange, copper, and dark copper that appear almost black. Lions and cheetahs, which we see almost daily, conform to the rule and have eyes that are mostly limited to shades of copper, although due to the colour of ambient light, their eye colour might appear more orange or yellow. We see a great diversity of eye colours in the 6 species of felines found around Entara’s lodges and camps. We are accustomed to seeing different eye colours in people and pets, but wild animals usually have only one eye colour typical of their species. Did you know that the eye colours of wild cats are more varied than most other wild animals in the Animal Kingdom?
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