[Eli5] Why do tigers’ eyes change from blue to orange as they grow up?
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The DNA that makes the pigment is not yet being produced. The body hasn’t activated it yet. The body uses certain DNA when you are just a tiny baby embryo and throughout your entire life your body is turning on certain DNA and deactivating others. In the beginning of the tigers life, same for lots of mammals, there is no pigment being produced the eye is still developing other aspects to it and no DNA has been turned on or activated in the body yet, to produce that color. The DNA is there, but no chemicals are interacting with it at the time. DNA is like a cascading reaction or like dominoes. Once you get them going they are going to fall in mostly predictable patterns. The pattern of falling dominoes may be different at the end of the domino trail but it still has to fall from the first domino.
Above explanation seems good so I’d like to contribute a fun fact: tigers aren’t the only ones either. The Weimaraner dog breed are born with blue eyes, and they turn yellow as they become adults.
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