• Question: They say that green eyes are mutations... what causes them?

    Asked by sparks to Asif, Laura, Lena, Sean, Viv on 17 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by macklev2.
    • Photo: Lena Ciric

      Lena Ciric answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      There are lots of different genes for eye colour and the differences between them are very small – a single base. They produce three different colours: brown, yellow and blue. All the eye colours out there are a result of the mix of these colours.

      The cause for the mutations is probably just accidental. The cell machinery can introduce these mutations while making a copy of the DNA. As eye colour doesn’t put you at a disadvantage from an evolutionary point of view, we now have lots of different eye colours.

    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Green is the least common eye color and as in the case of blue eyes, the color of green eyes does not result simply from the pigmentation of the iris. Rather, their appearance is caused by the combination of an amber or light brown pigmentation, with the blue tone caused by the scattering of the reflected light.

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