True albinos, like the white,
pink-eyed rabbit pets, are born without any coloring matter in their bodies. An albino is a person born without
any coloring matter or pigment, in his skin.
In such a person the skin is milky-white and the hair is very light.
A person who is a true albino also
has pink eyes because the iris (the colored part of the eye) is so clear that
the tiny blood vessels of the eye shines through. In normal eyes, the color of the iris serves
to hide the pinkness.
The color of our skin is chiefly due
to the presence of a color pigment called “melanin,” which gives the skin what we call “flesh
color.”
When melanin accumulates in small
spots in the skin, freckles appear. And
when you spend a few days in the sun, the sunlight darkens the melanin in your
skin and this results in a “suntan.”
Albinism is found not only in man,
but among all kinds of animals and birds, and it is even found in plants. Perhaps the animal albinos we are all most
familiar white mice and rats and rabbits that have pink eyes.
White ducks, chickens and horses are
not true albinos, because most of them have color pigments in eyes, beaks or
legs.-Dick Rogers
