albinism

Question

Cat   Hello! I was wondering if you could give me any information on my cat. I've asked around on the internet about her a bit but mostly gotten responses that seem to be intended to insult my honesty or my intelligence. I do know A BIT about albinism to begin with and I've been looking into it a bit more; but I'm still pretty baffled as to what would cause a cat to look like this. She has very pale blue irises, red pupils, and has color on the cooler areas of her body, as in partial albinism.... I just haven't been able to put together what would cause the red pupils along with the color points? From everything I've been able to find, red pupils are only mentioned in the "true albinos". Is it really unusual to have red pupils with a partial albino? I know several cats have eyes that look red in flash photography, etc. but I'm including a picture taken in natural light without any flash so you can see that isn't the case I'm talking about. Thanks for your time!

Answer
Hi Angela,

Red pupils in cats is the result of a non-pigmented tapetum. The tapetum is a membrane in the eye that causes light that has entered the eye to be reflected back out. This way, cats get double the light exposure through the retina that animals without a tapetum get, and this is the reason they see so well in darkness. Anyway, most cats have some pigment on the tapetum. As light that enters the eye (whether by camera flash or by ambient lighting) reflects back off the tapetum, it flashes back as yellow or green. Cats who have non-pigmented tapetums will reflect back with red pupils. This is seen most often in blue-eyed cats and ALWAYS in Siamese (and cats with albinism). Occasionally it's seen in cats without any albinism whatsoever. I even had a cat that had one normal eye and one non-pigmented tapetum.

Regarding red pupils only being found in true albinos, this is untrue. Red irises are typically only found in true albinos, but red pupils are somewhat common in the general population. Some of the palest Siamese do have pinkish-blue irises, but complete albinism, with no skin or fur pigment, is exceedingly rare in cats.  

Best wishes!
Jessica