The cat with kaleidoscope eyes

It's rare to see a cat with two differently-colored eyes (heterochromia), but even more rare to see sectoral heterochromia, in which each eye has two or more colors. It gives these cats an eerie look, and as you can tell from the pictures, usually (for reasons unknown) they're white. Except for this remarkable kitty. . .

Those who've been off the internet grid for a couple of years won't have heard of Venus, who has been called a "chimera cat" because she is supposedly her own fraternal twin. In truth, she's probably just an unlikely-colored calico (sometimes called a tortoise-shell or "tortie") who happens to have heterochromic eyes. Other cats have popped up on Google images with similar facial markings, but no other cat has that glamorous blue-and-gold "I vahnt to be alone" gaze.

White shadow: cats from a mystic world

There are certain cats - for some reason, almost all of them are white - which have a special genetic quirk called heterochromia iridum: meaning, they have two different eye colours, one blue and one green or yellow. But there are a few here who have something even more rare: sectoral heterochromia, which means. . . really pretty eyes! It means they have two colours in EACH eye. In some cases it's just a spot, and a little hard to see, but sometimes the division is quite dramatic.

What is it about white cats? I've also heard that many of them are deaf. But they more than make up for that difficulty with eyes so beautiful, it transports them into the realm of the mystical.

One of these photos looks photoshopped. I doubt if there is such a thing as a heterochromia rainbowia. But you never know, so I included it.