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Can anyone shed some light on the situation?
During my last 2 visits to Kruger I saw lions that have a BLUE eye.On both occations it was near Lower Sabie.
The male was on the S28


The female was on the H4-1
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Can anyone tell me what happened?My only guess is a Mozambique spitting cobra.
If you have seen a similar lion let me know where it was and if you have any pic's that would be awsome.

The female is a known one I think. Have a look through the lionstopic, you'll see more photos of her.

I'll have a look but do you know what is the cause of it?

An eye that is dammaged (no matter what the dammage) usually responds in the same way: Inflamation and healing with the laying down of scar tissue which looks blue . These look like the cornea is blue, so one cannot see inside the eye itself to see if there is something in there. Generaly if eyes "go blue" due to a systemic disease, then both would be affected. This indicates that these lions have had trauma of sorts to the affected eye. Not sure if a cobra spit would affect the eye that much! These eyes have been affected for a long time , as there is no active inflamation visible.

So would you say they might have been in a fight and got a claw in the eye or a thorn might have got in their eyes because both was close to lower sabie where there are allot of thorny bush?

Many, many possible causes ....

looks like some bad @$$ed lions!

So would you say they might have been in a fight and got a claw in the eye or a thorn might have got in their eyes because both was close to lower sabie where there are allot of thorny bush?

Not sure about the thorns, more likely fighting. Although I have seen a horse with a piece of twig in it's eye from running into a tree. Investigation of the camp it was in revealed several well grazed dagga (Marijuana) bushes! Seen any of those around LS?

Hello everybody!
Ok, their eyes are not so weird after all, but I find them a bit strange nonetheless, like constantly wide open and staring. We met several males like this, and not a single female (that's in the KTP).
Is there a reason to this?

I don't know of a reason but I get what you mean about weird, forever staring eyes, looking right through you. How about this from the Addo Lions thread:



There is something chilling about this pic of Bitterball but I would be interested to know if there is a reason behind it?

Emily, to me, on the pic you show, the lion looks intensely, but normaly. What we saw was different, and not the case with all of the male lions. It was a bit as if their eyes would pop out from their face...

An other example of what I mean. To me really unusual. They kept their eyes opened like that !
One can see the blood vessels on the side of his eyes...

Pikasso

This is really interesting. I wonder what it is?

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Siobain

I am just wondering if this might be a clinical sign of TB!

A bit research shows that their eyes have a horizontal streak of nerve cells, which improves their vision following prey across a plain. It acts like binoculars..constantly adjusting to what catches their attention / focusing on. They can also see in colour as we do but are much more acute...hope this helps a bit
Just thinking about it..the only time I have seen a lion blink / close it's eye lids is either when a fly is bothering it or when they decide catch up on the zzz's...the lazy characters.

@ Sable 2 - Not sure about the TB though, the lion in Pikasso' 2nd pic does look like it's ill.