In this work, a hybrid approach to analyse optic disc and macula to characterise the normal and abnormal status of the retina are proposed. The retinas with normal and Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) images were used for this study. The fundus retinal images are subjected to Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) based method to identify optic disc (OD) and Otsu method to further analyse the macula. Parameters such as radius of optic disc and distance between the centres of the optic disc and macula are used as indices for evaluation. The results show that combining Otsu method with ACO based method for macula detection demonstrate improved performance than ACO method alone. The value of the radius of optic disc and distance between the centres of OD and macula are distinct for normal and abnormal images. As identification of OD and macula are important for pathological assessment these studies seems to be clinically relevant. ©2009 IEEE.