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What is heterochromia?
Heterochromia is a fascinating condition where a person or an animal has two different colored eyes. In cats, one eye is typically blue, while the other one may be green, yellow, hazel, or brown. While any cat can have heterochromia, it’s by far most common in white cats or cats with white patches.
Are all cats with heterochromia born that way?
Some kittens are born with odd-colored eyes, which is called congenital heterochromia. While the gene that causes one eye to be blue is already present at birth, it will only become clear that the kitten has heterochromia once the little one is about 7 weeks old. That’s because all kittens are born with two baby blue eyes, and only after a few weeks their permanent eye color will start to show.
Some cats will only develop heterochromia later in life. This is called acquired heterochromia, and is caused by injury, disease, infection, or even medication – not by genes. Did you know that some cats even have 2 different colors within one eye? This is called sectoral heterochromia and is very rare.
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Does heterochromia impact a cat’s health?
When heterochromia appears later in life, it can be a symptom of an underlying condition, but the heterochromia in itself is completely harmless. Now, many fully white cats with heterochromia are deaf on the side of their blue eye, but this is caused by a different gene from the one that causes the heterochromia. In fact, white cats with blue eyes are very often deaf on the side of the blue eye – whether they have one or two.
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