Alien Eye - Brown Trout

[Phil Lilley]

Check this brown trout's eye out...

Pretty weird!

[fishinwrench]

He looks really stoned. Prolly a Colorado hybrid.

[Brian K. Shaffer]

That's hilarious!

[jdmidwest]

Catch and release really works. But it sometimes leaves some lop eyed fish.

[Phil Lilley]

Do you think it's an injury? Maybe- but there wasn't a wound.

I'll send it to our biologist.

[Brian K. Shaffer]

Phil - can you email me a copy of that photo ??? Thanks!

[fly2fish]

Knew those walleyes would start cross breeding sooner or later.

F2F

[Phil Lilley]

Answer from a fisheries biologist:

It's hard to tell from this picture but it looks like the fish has coloboma which usually manifests as a misshapen pupil often in the wrong location. Like most anomalies, it's genetic and occurs in all animals. It could also be due to trauma but I don't see any corneal scaring.

[ness]

Wrench,

I'm rating this thread 5 stars based on your response. Good work, my friend.

[Brian K. Shaffer]

Quashnet from the Classic Fly Rod Forum wrote this about the brown :

" Could possibly be a coloboma, in humans often appearing as a keyhole-shaped extension of the pupil. Zebrafish are used as a research model for eye studies, so for all I know (and I don't know) a coloboma (which can be of genetic origin) could naturally occur in a wild fish. Not my area of expertise though. "

Looks like coloboma is the answer to the eye defect... terrible that it happens to humans but its really rare : The incidence of coloboma is estimated at around 0.5 to 0.7 per 10,000 births, making it a relatively rare condition - per Wikipedia