burgundy colored eyes

[SnowyShiloh]

Hi everyone! I was just thinking about my bunnies' eye colors and Rory and Tallulah have brown eyes, and it occurred to me that most of the other bunnies I see have brown eyes too. Cinnabun had burgundy color eyes, a fact that seemed completely normal to us but kind of freaked out a lot of people. He was a Netherland Dwarf (possibly a mix as he was a bit bigger than normal and not as compact) with sable marten markings. You can see three pictures of him in my avatar to get an idea. It's odd, his true eye color didn't show up well on film, they always turned out either looking brown or very red. My question is, how common is it for a bunny to have burgundy colored eyes? What about when they have sable marten markings? And I know that with red eyed animals, their vision usually isn't as good... Would his vision have been less good with his burgundy colored eyes or did they not make a difference? We had him for 7 years and his eyesight seemed fine to us, but we didn't have any other rabbits to compare it to! Also, I've been trying to figure out the difference between otter and marten markings, to me they look the same except otter seems to come in blue and black and marten comes in sable, silver and I think some others. Is this right?

Thank you for helping me with this not very important questions that I am nevertheless very curious about!

 

[BlueGiants]

I've seen a number of burgundy eyesin pigmented rabbits (I think Pam addressed rabbits with a ruby glow in the eye's, but I can't seen to find it... I'll keep looking... There is an excellent site for coat geneticscovering the shaded breeds (and ruby eyes)

You can read more about Ruby Eyed White animals and what was found about their vision here. I don't know how Cinnabun's vision would be affected.


edited: cause I had trouble getting the hyperlink right!

 

[pamnock]

I'm guessing that your rabbit is a sable marten recessively carrying the "c" gene (heterozygous)for albinism, giving it more of a ruby glow to the eye than a homozygous sable marten would have. Ruby-eyed whites are often bred to shaded colors, so this is not uncommon.

It is likely that the eyesight is effected to some degree because we note that many rabbits with a ruby glow to the eye "scan". The ruby glow is a result of light reflecting back out of the eye - more light is scattered into the eyes of rabbits with lower "C" series genotypes because the genes limit pigment development in the eyes as well as in the coat.

The difference between otter and marten is the genes in the C series. Full color "C" results in tan pattern rabbits (such as otter) with orange or fawn lacing along the tan pattern markings. Martens (cchd - chin gene) and Sable Martens (cchl - shaded gene) coats are restricted of any red pigments, so do not show any orange or fawn in their markings. Therefore, there couldbe no colors such as"sable otter".



Pam