The photographs of two Turkish boys are doing the rounds on the internet just after they surfaced online.
Both of the boys have one eye colored blue and the other, a distinctively different brown.
Mehmet Selman, the elder brother aged 11, and Kerem Selman, the younger brother aged four, both have a blue right eye and a brown left eye.
The congenital phenomenon that causes this rare condition is known as heterochromia.
The Selman family lives in Bursa, Turkey. Mehmet and Kerem have complete heterochromia, causing entirely different colors in both eyes.
The other type of heterochromia, known as partial heterochromia, causes a single iris to have a combination of two colors.
The occurrence of partial heterochromia is more often than complete heterochromia.
About six in every 1000 children have partial heterochromia but the condition is hardly noticeable and has no effects on the vision of the affected person.
Suat Selman, the father of Mehmet and Kerem, told Aksam that when he noticed the difference in the colors of the eyes of his elder son, he took him to a doctor.
Suat was told that it is not an issue per se but Mehmet might have difficulty with seeing ‘in his blue eye’ in the future.
Complete heterochromia is extremely rare in humans but is quite prevalent in animals.
Most of the time, the condition is caused by genetic color variation inherited from parents. Heterochromia basically develops due to the varying concentrations of a biological pigment called melanin in the eyes.
This pigment is the factor determining the color of the eyes and skin.
The condition is mostly congenital but in very few cases, the condition might develop at later stages in life mainly because of trauma, glaucoma and certain sorts of cancer known as neuroblastoma or melanoma.
Suat said that his boys felt good for getting attention when they were younger but now they don’t feel good upon being inquired for having uniquely colored eyes.
“Sometimes, my boys shut their eyes in public to avoid attention,” Suat said of his boys.
The boys’ mother Esra Selman, however, feels lucky to have such unique sons.
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