# Eye reflecting green in bright light??



## IsaacsMom (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi all,

We have a new kitty and he's around 9 years old. When he looks up at me in the evening when there is a light above me his right eye glows green on the pupil portion. The left pupil does not glow. 

Does anyone know if this means he is blind in that eye? In the daytime, his pupil appears black - not cloudy.

TIA :wink:


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

There could be several reasons. One being the light is only striking one eye 'funny'. Another being he has had a past injury to that eye and it reflects 'funny'. I would be inclined to think it is just the way the light is capturing it and you are viewing it...

Below is a picture of my Trio.; Silver, Toby and Mister. Sil is having health problems right now (possible internal mass) and her two brothers have passed away during the past two years from internal masses.
Both Silver and Mister's left eyes were injured as feral kittens. By the time we trapped them and brought them inside at about 6-7 weeks old, their L eyes had been matted shut for some time and were scarred from whatever matter had gotten into their eyes. 
Silver's L eye has a dark brown 'skin' growing over the outer corner and limits her peripheral vision. Mister's L eye was scarred over the whole surface, like it had been covered in several layers of wrinkle-y saran wrap. It would always reflect 'funny', as you can sort of see in this picture, it looks faded, or blue-ish.


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## IsaacsMom (Dec 29, 2007)

Interesting. I looked a bit on google and it seems the green reflecting is normal - maybe there's something amiss with the eye that does NOT reflect...? Thanks for your insight - he doesn't seem to have any problems eg. bumping into things etc. It was just weird to see one glowing and one not.


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## bouchie11982 (Sep 8, 2007)

my cat does the same thing. one eye reflects more yellow and the other green. 
but IIRC there is a picture of a husky in the "Meet My Kitty" threads and the husky has one eye red and the other brown.


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## horseplaypen (Apr 1, 2004)

The glowing effect of cats eyes (and dogs, and deer, and moose, and other things) is caused by a layer at the back of the eye called the tapetum lucidum. I learned that word in a natural history of vertebrates class last semester and I repeated it over and over cause I like how it sounds. Tapetum lucidum.  Anyway, it just serves to reflect light into the retina so animals can see better in the dark. Maybe the light was just not striking the other eye at a proper angle for you to see the glow? Do you have a camera? You could try taking a flash photo of your kitty and seeing if both eyes light up in the picture. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about though.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

I think eye color determines what color the reflection is... 
Most animal eyes will reflect green-ish, yellow-ish, but blue eyes reflect red. (huskies, siamese, blue-eyed people, et cetera...)

I agree about the angle of the light and the reflection you see. Unless the cat's eyes are both facing the light, and facing you also so you can see into each eye equally, they would appear to reflect differently.


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