What Eye Colors Are There?
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What are the types of eye colors that exist?
In today’s article, we are going to learn:
- What eye colors are there?
- What gives color to the eyes,
- What eye color has more melanin,
- What determines eye color?
- Why do eyes change color?
- And to finish, we will discover more curiosities about eye colors.
If you are also interested in knowing more about eye color, we invite you to continue reading.
What Eye Colors Are There?
There are different types of eye colors and different shades ranging from amber to chestnut brown, covering all shades of gray, blue, and green.
Eye color is determined by the distribution and amount of melanin in each person’s iris.
The two types of melanin found in the eye color process are:
Eumelanin which is dark brown in color, and pheomelanin, which is yellowish/reddish in color. Generally (except for uncommon cases), eumelanin is found in large quantities in the iris epithelium.
We find three elements of the iris responsible for eye color:
- The melanin of the iris epithelium,
- The melanin of the anterior part of the iris,
- And the density of the iris stroma.
Several genes are involved in the generation of eye color. In addition to melanin, another pigment called lipochrome is also present in this process.
Eye Colors
Amber Eye Color
Amber eye color is the shades from yellow to golden reddish, a color that lies between hazel and brown. The pigment involved in amber eye color is lipochrome.
Brown Eye Color
Chestnut eye color refers to shades of brown, chestnut, or brown. Brown eyes have large amounts of melanin, and dark brown eyes have more melanin than light brown eyes (such as honey color), which have less melanin.
Chestnut-colored, brown, or coffee-colored eye colors are one of the most widespread phenotypes in people. The pigment involved in brown color is melanin, and the genes that determine brown eye color are found on chromosome 15.
Gray Eye Color
Gray eye color has shades of gray ranging from light gray to dark gray. Its origin is unknown.
Blue Eye Color
Blue eye color starts with shades of light blue. The pigment involved is melanin in very low concentrations, along with several genes.
Green Eye Color
Green eye color refers to shades ranging from gray to brown. The pigment involved is melanin in moderate amounts and specific genes.
Hazel Eye Color
Hazel or brown eye colors include shades ranging from green to brown. The pigment involved is unknown and can have different shades in the iris, ranging from green, brown, or amber.
DNA is responsible for encoding the genetic information that will determine each person’s eye color.
The iris is part of the eye that has a different color in each individual, and it is a membrane that, in addition to being a specific color, regulates the amount of light that penetrates the eye.
What Gives Eyes Their Color?
Several genes are involved in determining the color of the iris of the eyes. It is believed that as many as 16 genes may be involved in determining eye color.
The EYCL1 gene is involved in shades of blue and green.
The EYCL2 gene is present in brown and dark shades.
The EYCL3 gene is responsible for determining how much melanin is produced. Depending on the amount of melanin, the eye color will be different.
The more melanin produced, the darker the eye color will be.
Which Eye Color Has More Melanin?
Genes that carry more melanin provide brown eyes and are dominant over blue eyes, which create less melanin.
People with different colored areas of the iris have different concentrations of melanin in those areas.
What determines Eye Color?
Dark eye color is a dominant gene, and light eye color is a recessive gene.
Why do eyes change color?
Changes in light cause the pupil to change in size, and the pupil is larger in low light and smaller in bright light.
As the size of the pupil changes, the pigments in the iris also change, spreading or contracting, and this can appear to change the color of the eyes.
In turn, strong emotions affect pupil size, which also causes it to affect the iris. That is why we may notice that the color of our eyes changes when we cry, get angry, or are in love.
Curiosities About Eye Color
– Eye color is unique to each individual, just as our fingerprints are unique.
– The eye color of an albino person (albinism is characterized by the lack of melanin) may appear red depending on the brightness.
– Some people have an iris of each color. This phenomenon is known as heterochromia.
– It is believed that the appearance of blue eyes was caused by a mutation in the OCA2 gene (responsible for melanin) 6,000 – 10,000 years ago. This mutation caused a decrease in the ability to produce the necessary melanin in the iris to produce brown, coffee-colored eyes, and instead, they were blue.
– Some professionals indicate that black eye color does not exist but that they are brown eyes with such a high amount of melanin that they are so dark that they appear black.
– Although many thought that Elizabeth Taylor had violet eyes, the truth is that her eyes were a deep shade of blue that, when mixed with light, makeup, and wardrobe, gave her a reddish hue similar to violet. In addition, the actress had a double row of eyelashes.
