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Blue eye bearded dragons Marek's/herpies

I just dissected two dragon eyes. I found sclera and goo. Nothing that resembles an iris. The eye was frozen and denatured and I have still not reached a conclusion.
 
Ok here are the pics. After these it is fairly conclusive that bearded dragons do have an Iris (Irises? plural? Haha English is not my first language.)

The first photo is from "Infectious diseases and pathology of Reptiles" by Elliott R Jacobson. It shows the histopathology of the cornsnake eye.

I encircled the IRIS. Thus we now KNOW that cornsnakes have an iris.

From my picture uploaded above we can see that cornsnake eyes are very similar to bearded dragon eyes. We can thus CONCLUDE that bearded dragons also have IRISES?

The second picture is a PM I have done several years ago. (This female is the great great grandmother to the Witblits bearded dragons).
The tags are obvious.

Now I have PROVEN (almost) that bearded dragons have an iris.

Ok so that is out of the way now. Back to the oroiginal discussion. Why are some bearded dragon eyes BLUE?
 

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"Why wouldn't the iris respond to light?"

The iris would (and does) respond to light. That is the main purpose of the iris. To control the amount of light that enters the eye via the pupil. This miosis is quite obvious in mammals. In the dragon it is quite subtle. I suspect it is because they are more used to sharp light conditions.

What I have noted is how reponsive their iris is to focussing. The iris/pupil would react more towards different focus levels than towards light sharpness.

This is different than in mammals. Our iris/pupil plays a small role in focus. The ciliary muscles of the lens does the work here. I think once again it is due to the fact that beardeds eyesight is their main sense.

Why is the iris vascular and white?"

I dont know why it is so vascular. In humans the sclera is quite vascular. Perhaps these bloodvessels are not on the iris but rather part of the cornea in the bearded dragon. This will have to be shown by histopathology.

White. I havent seen one that is white. They have an off-white (which means there are pigment in them) background colour but the majoroty of the eye is 'coloured', either brown or yellow.
 
The striated muscles typically associated with reptilians eyes iris make it possible that the contraction/dialation may actually be a voluntary responce. The dragon may have control over this function.
 
"Bearded dragons eyes DO NOT respond to light"

Steven they do. Perhaps the ones you have dissected don't... Jokes. A normal dragon's pupils will respond to light, but very little.

I think the sandy thing you are referring to is the lens. Not sure what you mean.
 
I am not an opthamologist. Why the rude question?

I had a legitimate question. "Do bearded dragons have irises?"

Do I have to be an opthamologist to ask this question?

I agree with your assessment of my dissection. They do have an iris. Thanks for sharring your info.
 
"I am not an opthamologist. Why the rude question?"
Not rude at all. How you deduce that I was rude I am not sure. I just asked because you stated that they DO NOT repsond to light. I just wanted to know how much experience you have in measuring PLR. So definately not rude, maybe slightly sarcastic but not rude. I'm not a ride guy. I have been trying to help you all the way here.

So on to the BLUE eyes now.
 
Steven, the right thing to do here would actualy be to submit a bearded dragon eye to a veterinary pathologist/anatomist and have them do histopath on a cross section of the eye. That way we will know exactly what their eyes are made up of.
 
I have no questions about the blue eyes. Well actualy I do. But I am referring to your original questions and statements on the Blue eyed dragons;
are they genetic, what basis of inheritance then, are they pathologic, what causes then, etc.
 
witblits said:
Wow! That is cool. What is even cooler is the variation between them. Seems that there are indeed a pigmented iris in them. And that this iris is hypermelanistic! Not translucent. Thanks Kelli

Any pictures of abnormal trans eyes out there?

Any pictures of a dragon's eyes where it has a "red eye effect" guys?
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert by any means but as far as what makes the translucent have a "black" eye - I have always attributed it to their lack of white pigment. Just like their skin lacks white pigment, I assumed the eye did as well. When you look at a (full) trans eye in the light/sun you can see it's actually dark brown.

On the other end you have hypos who seem to usually have whiter eyes. But when I look at a typical dragons eye (including all these pictures) I see a white background with varying degrees of vascular activity.

I won't go into all the rudeness going back and forth. Perhaps there is some loss of meaning in the language barrier. But when I first read Steven's original post I did not think he was trying to say he had all the answers or this is the diagnosis of all blue eyes. To me I got that he was saying look at all the possible explanations.. And the fact that none have yet to reproduce. The science behind it is fascinating but the bottom line remains the same. If you can't reproduce it than it just an anomaly.

And a silver/white eye is not a blue eye. I like to look at the Hypo Trans from All about the beardeds as I have had one the same. This is what a true blue eyed dragon should look like. Unfortunately all these specimens happen to be hypo trans and the eyes may always become dark/black.
 
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