To understand the difference between a Blue-eyed white and a Red-eyed white I will first explain the mechanism by which a normal coloured rabbit, for example Agouti Netherland Dwarf, produces its fur colour and eye colour.  I will then explain how the red and blue-eyed whites differ.

Melanin is a substance that gives the skin and hair its natural colour; it also gives colour to the iris of the eye.  Melanin is formed as part of the process of metabolizing an amino acid called tyrosine in the skin, cells called melanocytes form melanin.

The normal rabbit produces the amino acid tyrosine, which interacts with Melanocyte cells in the skin and creates melanin to colour the fur.  To produce coloured fur both the amino acid and the Melanocyte cell are required.

The eye colour in the normal rabbit is governed by two components of the eye, the iris and the retina.

The Iris is split into two layers; the first layer, the stroma, consists of Melanocyte cells, which provide the iris colour.  The second layer, iris pigment epithelium (IPE), consists of dark pigment to create a light tight barrier.  This is so the eye can regulate the amount of light entering by altering the size of iris.

The second component to govern eye colour is the retina this has melanocyte cells which produce dark light absorbing pigment to prevent reflections within the eye.

• The fur of both the red and blue-eyed white differ from the normal rabbit and produce white fur by two different methods:
• A Red-eyed white does not produce the tyrosine amino acid and so cannot make its Melanocyte cells produce pigment.

A blue-eyed white produces the amino acid, but does not have Melanocyte pigment cells in its fur to produce the colour.

The eye colours of the Red and Blue-eyed white are created in a similar way to the fur colour.

A red-eyed white rabbit lacks the amino acid for colour production even though the pigment producing cells are present in the stroma, the IPE and the retina; the lack of amino acid ensures colour is not produced and the whole iris is totally transparent.  Since there is no light absorbing pigments on the retina, light is reflected back from the blood rich retina back through the iris thus producing a ruby red eye colour.

In contrast the blue-eyed white has melanocyte cells in the IPE layer of the iris and in the retina, but no cells in the stroma.  It produces the correct amino acid to activate the pigment cells so the IPE and the retina are correctly pigmented, but the lack of Melanocyte cells in the stroma causes it to be transparent.  The blue colour is an optical effect caused by light refracting through the stroma of the iris eye, in the same way as the sky is made blue by the light refracting through it.

A fault with Blue Eyed Whites is the opal eye.  This is caused by the action of other genes on the rabbit and it causes the light absorbing cells on the retina to be missing, as in a red-eyed white.  This creates an eye that is blue in the iris, but red in the centre, this is known as an opal eye.

Note on fur shade in both colours.

The fur of BEW and REW is the same, no pigment therefore white, some whites look whiter than white.  This is caused by the action of light moving through hair shafts of different composition.  Finer hair shafts can often appear whiter than the courser haired rabbit.  However that is another article.