• Question: Why do people have different eye colour?

    Asked by anon-354668 on 8 Mar 2023. This question was also asked by anon-354680, anon-354688.
    • Photo: Maria Price

      Maria Price answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      This is typically due to genetics and what genes your parents pass down to you. This doesn’t necessarily mean you will have the same eye colour as them though.

    • Photo: Sophie Wickens

      Sophie Wickens answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      The colour of someone’s eyes is determined by genes in our bodies and can be passed down from your parents. Having brown eyes is a dominant gene which over-rides the blue eyed gene.

    • Photo: Rachel Colquhoun

      Rachel Colquhoun answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      Eye colour is dependent on the genes you get from your parents – but it isn’t always simple. There are 16 different genes known to play a part.
      The amount of pigment in the iris can make your eyes darker or lighter brown, and the shape of the stroma will affect the way it scatters light, which makes different shades of blue, grey or green.

    • Photo: Benjamin Foster

      Benjamin Foster answered on 9 Mar 2023:

      Genetics plays a prominent role in eye colour so depends on the genes passed down from parents to offspring.

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