Eye Colours

[shower]

What colours can people's eyes be and what is the most unusual eye colour that people have?

[5029]

Ned's answer is partly right. Biologically there are two coloured genes which may be present to determine eye colour, blue and brown. Everyone has two of these. If a person has 2 blue genes they will have blue eyes, if they have 2 brown genes they will have brown eyes, and if they have one of each they will also have brown eyes as the brown gene is dominant over the blue one.

Each parent gives one gene each to their offspring, so two parents with blue eyes MUST have a blue eyed child, while two with brown eyes could have either. Let me know if there's anything else you don't understand.

By the way, any other colours eg green and grey are just versions of brown and blue respectively

[Spellmaster]

I know someone who's eyes are different colours from each other - one is a beautiful piercing blue and the other is brown.

[Hamish]

There is one colour you've missed, pink. Albino people lack any pigmentation and therefore have pink eyes. As true albino people are rare I would suggest that pink is the rarest eye colour.

Hamish

[PaulYukochan]

What is Hazel eye colour. Is it true that some people's eyes change colour if they are hungover?

[andy hughes]

Pink is not strictly a colour, it is the red of the eye's blood vessels which show through the absence of any other pigment in the eye. hazel (which i have) is a mixture of brown and green - my parents' eye colours. There is one version of blue, which is violet - very rare, I've only known one person with eyes that colour, but I believe Elizabeth Taylor has violet eyes.

[GreenBuggy]

Elizabeth Taylor has violet eyes which seems unusual. My sister and I both have eyes that change colour - they go randomly from Blue to Grey to Hazel. I think it may have something to do with the weather. . .

[andy hughes]

David Bowie's odd eyes are not of genetic origin - he was hit in the eye as a child during a playground fight, resulting in the virtual loss of sight in the affacted eye, and its unusual appearence. Bowie's protagonist was George Underwood who went on to forge a successful career as a book jacket and music album cover artist.

[Hamish]

The eye is pink Andy, the fact that this is due to a diffent material does not make it less valid to say that the eye is pink.

[tartwitahart]

my eyes are really strange my left is a hazely-greeny colour with a bit of orange in it and my right eye is blue?