What is an albino?

An albino is a person or an animal without any colour at all in their skin except red caused by blood vessels. This is quite rare, and means that person has very white skin, white hair and pink or red looking eyes. The red colour appears because there are lots of blood vessels in the eye. Albinos live all over the world – there are albino people in Africa, where rest of their family is the colour you would expect. As well as being striking to look at, albinos also have problems if they live in sunny countries. Because they have no colour in their skin, they also have little or no protection against the harmful rays of the sun, and can burn very easily unless proper care is taken. Albinos also have no colour in their eyes, which means that there is little or no protection against strong light, so many albinos have to wear dark glasses for most of the time.