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Dear Yahoo!:
Is the human eye fully grown at birth?
Gary
Las Vegas, Nevada
Dear Gary:
When born, we're bald and toothless. Sadly, many of us die looking the same way. In fact, we've heard the eye is the only body part that remains the same size from birth until death. However, after doing a little research, we discovered this is more rumor than fact.

According to several sites, a typical newborn's eye is around 18 millimeters in diameter. When you are an infant, the size increases to 19.5 millimeters. A fully grown adult's eye measures 24-25 millimeters. This page on eye anatomy points out that a fully developed eyeball is about two-thirds the size of a ping-pong ball.

This means a human eye grows only about 28% over the course of its life. Fish supposedly have the ability to increase their eye size "steadily over the course of their entire lives," a talent lost on us "superior" Homo sapiens.

 
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