How Do You Get Green Eyes?

How Do You Get Green Eyes
Green Eyes – Only about 2 percent of the world’s population has green eyes. Green eyes are a genetic mutation that produces low levels of melanin, but more than blue eyes. As in blue eyes, there is no green pigment. Instead, because of the lack of melanin in the iris, more light scatters out, which make the eyes appear green.

Where do green eyes come from?

Rare Green Eyes – Lots of genetic traits are rare. For example, left-handedness occurs in just 10% of the world’s population, only 11% have naturally curly hair, and a mere 4% have blonde hair. But of all of the seven billion-plus people on planet Earth, only 2% can claim to have one unique trait.

So, what is this trait so few of us have? Green eyes. Yes, only 2 percent of the population of the entire world have them. How does that compare to other colors? Brown eyes are most common, as many of you would guess, with 79% of people born with them. Blue is found in 8% of people, 5% of us are hazel-eyed, and 5% have eyes of amber.

Essentially, green eyes are unique. Most common in Western, Northern, and Central Europe, green eyes often point to German or Celtic ancestry. Currently, they can be found most often in Iceland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Britain, and Scandinavia. In Britain, brown eyes are, interestingly, even more rare than green eyes, with 22 percent of residents being brown-eyed.

By comparison, nearly one-third of residents have green eyes.
Interestingly, green eyes may not appear in children until age three, as pigmentation takes time to form and then to appear.
If eyes are, as they say, “windows of the soul,” then green-eyed have the rarest souls around.
As a color, green is often associated with negative emotions like jealousy (Shakespeare’s Othello has a quote that calls envy “the green-ey’d monster”).

Still, plenty of people think green is one of the most alluring eye colors. Green eyes can be emerald- or lime-hued, creating a look that is both mysterious and attractive. How Do You Get Green Eyes

How does a person inherit green eyes?

Eye color inheritance pattern – Due to the number of genes involved in eye color, the inheritance pattern is complex. Although a child’s eye color can generally be predicted by looking at the color of the parents’ eyes, the polymorphisms that can arise mean a child may well have an unexpected eye color.

A child’s eye color depends on the pairing of genes passed on from each parent, which is thought to involve at least three gene pairs. The two main gene pairs geneticists have focused on are EYCL1 (also called the gey gene) and EYCL3 (also called the bey2 gene). The different variants of genes are referred to as alleles.

The gey gene has one allele that gives rise to green eyes and one allele that gives rise to blue eyes. The bey2 gene has one allele for brown eyes and one for blue eyes. The allele for brown eyes is the most dominant allele and is always dominant over the other two alleles and the allele for green eyes is always dominant over the allele for blue eyes, which is always recessive.

This means parents who happen to have the same eye color can still produce a different eye color in their child.
For example, if two parents with brown eyes each passed on a pair of blue alleles to their offspring, then the child would be born with blue eyes.
However, if one of the parents passed on a green allele, then the child would have green eyes and if a brown allele was present, then the child would have brown eyes irrespective of what the other three alleles were.

Chromosome 15 – Eye colour However, this does not explain why two parents with blue eyes can have a child with brown eyes. It also does not explain how grey or hazel eyes arise. This is where modifier genes, other genes associated with eye color and mutations all come into picture, as they can all lead to variability in eye color.

How to have a green eyed baby?

What color eyes will my child have? – There’s no guarantee when it comes to your offspring’s eye color. While a baby inherits half of their eye color genetics from one parent and half from the other parent, the way that the genes interact also plays a role in determining eye color.

Differences in eye color are also influenced by differing amounts of melanin, the pigment responsible for eye color (plus hair color and skin tone). For instance, many white non-Hispanic babies are born with blue eyes because they don’t have the full amount of melanin present in their irises at birth.

As the child grows older, if they’ve developed slightly more melanin in their irises, the eyes will be green or hazel, When the iris stores a lot of melanin, the eyes will be amber (a golden brown), light brown or dark brown. Even though you don’t know the amount of melanin your baby will have, you can still get a pretty good sense of eye color from the parents’ eye colors.

Two blue-eyed parents are likely to have a blue-eyed child, but it’s not guaranteed. Two brown-eyed parents are likely to have a brown-eyed child. Again, it’s not guaranteed. Two green-eyed parents are likely to have a green-eyed child, although there are exceptions. Two hazel-eyed parents are likely to have a hazel-eyed child, although a different eye color could emerge. If one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the odds of having a baby with blue eyes increases slightly. If one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, the chances of having a brown-eyed or blue-eyed baby are roughly even.

The Fertility Institutes, which offers fertility services in California, New York, Utah and Mexico, offers the following odds of a baby’s eye color based on the parents’ eye colors. (Due to rounding, percentages don’t always add up to 100%.)

Both parents with brown eyes: 75% chance of baby with brown eyes, 18.8% chance of baby with green eyes, 6.3% chance of baby with blue eyes. Both parents with blue eyes: 99% chance of baby with blue eyes, 1% chance of baby with green eyes, 0% chance of baby with brown eyes. Both parents with green eyes: 75% chance of baby with green eyes, 25% of baby with blue eyes, 0% chance of baby with brown eyes. One parent with brown eyes and one parent with blue eyes: 50% chance of baby with brown eyes, 50% chance of baby with blue eyes, 0% chance of baby with green eyes. One parent with brown eyes and one parent with green eyes: 50% chance of baby with brown eyes, 37.5% chance of baby with green eyes, 12.5% chance of baby with blue eyes. One parent with blue eyes and one parent with green eyes: 50% of chance of baby with blue eyes, 50% chance of baby with green eyes, 0% chance of baby with brown eyes.

Keep in mind that it may take six to 12 months for a baby’s true eye color to emerge, so the color you see at birth can certainly change. SEE RELATED: Is it true all babies are born with blue eyes?

Can a child have green eyes if neither parent does?

A couple’s children can have almost any eye color, even if it does not match those of either parent. Currently it is thought that eye color is determined by about six genes, so you can imagine how inheritance of eye color becomes very complicated. There are some characteristics of various plants or animals that are determined by two simple genes.

Let’s think about this situation.
If we say brown is dominant to blue (and we pretend that eye color is decided the way you learned it), someone with brown eyes, like your mom, may be carrying one blue allele and one brown allele (but only the brown shows up).
She can pass either of these alleles on to her offspring, so in theory, even though brown is dominant, a brown eyed mom and a blue eyed dad could give birth to a blue eyed child.

Now imagine a third green allele, which is dominant to blue, but recessive to brown. If your mother carried the green allele (but only her brown shows up), she could easily pass the green allele on to you (and in terms of probability, would do so 50% of the time), and matched with your dad’s blue allele, you would have green eyes.

This is a nice way to think about it, but again, eye color is much more complicated, and involves genes that determine the amount of pigment in your eyes, as well as genes that can modify even dominant alleles.
The wikipedia article on this is written at a pretty advanced level, but it may help explain what is going on with eye color eye color.

Eye image by Laitr Keiows via Wikimedia Commons

Can 2 brown-eyed parents produce green eyes?

Is it possible for two brown eyed people to have a child with blue eyes? Editor’s Note (4/14/2021): The following article and diagrams present an over-simplified, outdated version of eye color genetics. Eye color is influenced by at least 50 genes, not all of which are well understood.

Yes. The short answer is that brown-eyed parents can have kids with brown, blue or virtually any other color eyes. Eye color is very complicated and involves many genes. To begin to understand how parents with brown eyes could have blue-eyed children, let’s imagine that eye color is due to a single gene, EYCL3, which comes in two versions or alleles, brown ( B ) and blue ( b ).

Remember that for most genes (including eye color), you have two copies of each gene, and that you inherited one from your mother and one from your father. The brown version of the eye color gene ( B ) is dominant over the blue version ( b ). Dominant means that if either of your genes is the B version, then you will have brown eyes.

Genetically speaking, then, people with brown eyes could be either BB or Bb while people with blue eyes could only be bb, Example of a one-gene model for eye color. For two parents with brown eyes to have a blue-eyed child, both parents must genetically be Bb, When this happens, there is a 1 in 4 chance that these parents will have a bb child with blue eyes.

Unfortunately, eye color is not as simple as this. Besides the EYCL3 gene described above, at least two other genes, EYCL1 and EYCL2, are also involved. Although this set of genes explains how people can have green eyes, it does a poor job of explaining how blue-eyed parents could have brown-eyed children or how anyone can have hazel or gray eyes at all.

To understand green eyes in all of this, we only need to review EYCL1 and EYCL3 (EYCL2 is a poorly understood brown eye color gene). Remember, EYCL3 has two versions, brown ( B ) and blue ( b ). EYCL1 also comes in two versions, green ( G ) and blue ( b ). The way these genes work is that if you have a B allele, you will have brown eyes ( B is dominant over b and G ), if you have a G allele and no B allele, you will have green eyes ( G is dominant over b ) and if you have all b genes, then you will have blue eyes.

Example of a two-gene model for eye color. I hope this helps to answer your question. As you can tell, while some progress has been made, eye color is a very complex, polygenic trait that is not yet fully understood. : Is it possible for two brown eyed people to have a child with blue eyes?

What two genes make green eyes?

Why are our kids’ eyes different colours? – Let’s look at why a blue-eyed parent (dad) and a brown-eyed parent (mum) and can have brown, green, and blue-eyed children. For gene 1, OCA2, there are two possibilities: brown or blue. The brown version of gene 1 is dominant over the blue one. Dominant means that if at least 1 of your two copies is brown (Bb), then you will have brown eyes. Geneticists represent the different versions of the eye colour gene as B for brown and b for blue (the capital letter is the dominant, the lowercase, recessive).

So brown eyes are either Bb or BB and blue eyes are bb.
For gene 2, there are two possibilities, green or blue.
Green is dominant over blue.
Green eyes can be GG, or Gb, while blue eyes are bb.
Brown is dominant over green, so if you have a B version of gene 1 and a G version of gene 2, you will have brown eyes.

The possible gene combinations that can give you brown, green, or blue eyes are shown in the chart. Back to the green or blue-eyed children. Dad can only be bb bb as he has blue eyes. Since mum has brown eyes, she could have any of six different possibilities.

How did I get hazel eyes?

Hazel – Hazel eyes are due to a combination of Rayleigh scattering and a moderate amount of melanin in the iris’ anterior border layer. Hazel eyes often appear to shift in color from a brown to a green. Although hazel mostly consists of brown and green, the dominant color in the eye can either be brown/gold or green.

This is why hazel eyes can be mistaken as amber and vice versa.
The combination can sometimes produce a multicolored iris, i.e., an eye that is light brown/amber near the pupil and charcoal or dark green on the outer part of the iris (or vice versa) when observed in sunlight.
Definitions of the eye color hazel vary: it is sometimes considered to be synonymous with light brown or gold, as in the color of a hazelnut shell.

Around 18% of the US population and 5% of the world population have hazel eyes.

What genotype makes green eyes?

Green is dominant over blue and so G usually represents green and b, blue. Green eyes, then, can be GG or Gb while blue eyes are bb. Your genotype (genetic makeup) is probably Bb Gb.