Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

The Beatles, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Do you see them? Walking down the street, working with you in your offices, the friend with the amazing eyes? If you’ve ever met someone who has multicolored eyes, or two eyes of a different color, you’ve encountered someone with the absolutely stunning trait known as Heterochromia. It’s not just humans either, it exists in dogs and cats as well, and it is far and away one of the most beautiful, stunning, and mysterious physical traits mankind is known to possess.

History of Different Colored Eyes Day

Different Colored Eyes Day was established to celebrate this beautiful variation in eyes, and to break some of the mystery surrounding it. There are many things that can cause heterochromia, some of them being nothing more than a genetic trait present from birth, others being caused by disease or injury. There are three different types of heterochromia, each one being identified by the degree to which the heterochromia exists and how it manifests.

You see, heterochromia can be complete, where each eye is a completely different color from the other, and appropriately enough this is known as Complete Heterochromia. In partial heterochromia, a portion of the iris is a different color from the other, and in what has to be our favorite manifestation of heterochromia, especially when occurring in both eyes, is when the inner ring of the iris is a different color than the rest of it.

We even have multiple records of it occurring throughout history “She was a very beautiful woman… She had dark, dark brown eyes, but each eye had a purple ring to it, about a quarter of an inch of purple around these dark brown eyes.” These words were spoken of Baroness Rozsika Edie von Wertheimstein, who was known to have central heterochromia.

5 FUN FACTS ABOUT DIFFERENT COLORED EYES

1. Heterochromia is usually benign

   Translation: having different colored eyes is almost never an eye disease, and almost never will affect your vision.

2. Stars – they have heterochromia just like us!

   Dan Aykroyd, Mila Kunis, Henry Cavill, and more all have heterochromia.

3. Man’s best friend

   The breeds of dogs that most often have heterochromia are Siberian huskies, Australian shepherds, collies, corgis, and Chihuahuas.

4. Born to be odd

   Some animals like “odd-eyed cats” are bred specifically to have this genetic feature!

5. Heterochromia mistaken for anisocoria

   Anisocoria, which is when a person has two different pupil sizes, can sometimes be mistaken for having two different colored irises – take David Bowie for example!

NATIONAL DIFFERENT COLORED EYES DAY DATES