Just how rare are blue, green, purple and bi-colored eyes?

Question

All my family(including extended family) has blue eyes. I have seen several people with green eyes, likewise bi-colored eyes. I have even seen a Malay(black hair, brown skin, from Malaysia) with blue eyes(I didn't think this was possible. All Malay have black eyes). But I have never seen purple. I'm guessing this is the rarest?

Answer 1

Purple is rare of course. The most well known person that has real purple eyes (not contact enhanced) is Elizabeth Taylor. She made a living off of those purple eyes.

You probably don't want to hear about my oldest brother, who was born with almost black eyes, then through the years (beginning at 20) they changed from black to purple to emerald green to bright sky blue to chrystal no-colour--where they still remain today after 40 years of change. We are all jealous of him. But my oldest daughter has inherited a small measure of this. She was born with sky blue eyes, which changed to storm grey. And are now in the process of going green. She is currently 32 years old.

Answer 2

It depends upon where you are on the planet. In Iceland, many people have blue eyes, in India few have blue eyes. So blue eyes could be 30% in one area and 1/4% in other gene pools.

We know that the inheritance of eye color is polygenic (many genes) and it depends on how many active (additive) alleles (versions) you inherit.

Note, that blue eyes are really an absence of color, similar to the way water appears blue by reflection but is really colorless. So people with blue eyes have not inherited any or very few active alleles. The more active alleles that are inherited the darker the color of the eyes. Let us say that mom has medium brown eyes and dad also has medium brown eyes, but each of them have 3 active alleles and 3 non active alleles. So their first child inherits all 6 of their active alleles and has dark brown eyes. Then it could be that child number 2 inherits all 6 non-active alleles. That child will have very light blue eyes. Green, hazel, gray, light brown, etc. are all as a result of how many alleles are adding to the eye color. This is also why brown is always dominant over blue and green is dominant over blue because they both have more active alleles than blue and add to the eye color.

Hope this helps.

For rare, some people have two different colors ... heterochromia iridium ... we see also cats with this condition.

Answer 3

Purple eyes are probably the rarest of all eye colors, but bi-color eyes are also rare too.
If 2 parents have blue eyes, then all of their children will have light-colored eyes (variations of blues).. Or maybe purple, which is I think also a darker kind of blue..

Answer 4

What people often call purple in eye color is actually a deep shade of blue, which sort of looks purplish.

I've never heard the term bi-colored eyes in the U.S., we say hazel for eyes that are a combination of green and brown.

The rarest "color" of eyes is probably the condition of aniridia, where the iris (the colored part of the eye) is missing, so the eye appears as one giant pupil. So actually the colored part is missing.

Answer 5

Blue: 100% recessive, uncommon oustide of populations dominated by Norse ancestry. One person with different coloured eyes in the mix will stop that real quick... ;)
Green: uncommon, but more common than blue.
Purple: statistically "0"...For a few years, Elizabeth Taylor was known as the *only* person alive with this colour (she likely wasn't, but still)...

As for your Malay "friend," all that means is that (s)he had one ancestor (not necessarily the same person) on each side of her family that carried the recessive trait that expresses as blue eyes.

Bi-Coloured: depends on what you mean - two tone eyes are VERY common...two different coloured irises (ie: one blue, one green) is obscenely rare - it is a genetic fluke that allows two different colours to express themselves like that.

Ironically, you do seem to be right. two different coloured eyes is obscenely rare, but can still be expressed as an easily readable decimal (likely in the 0.0005% range). Purple eyes are so rare as to essentially be unique - a true genetic fluke who's statistical recurrence approximates zero.

Answer 6

those colors are pretty, but rare because they are recessive traits,you will see them but not to often,

I know purple eyes can occur, but the only person I know who has them is Elizabeth Taylor. I've never met anyone with them that's how rare they are.

Answer 7

My eyes are like a really light blue/grey color and my mom and brothers are like a regular light blue, so i don't know how rare it is

Answer 8

At one point these colours were all rare and stoppers if you caught a glance. Unfortunately, today all you have to do is go to your local optometrists and order your favorite colour, even snake eyes are available. Now that's what I call colour coordination!!

Answer 9

i didnt no purple eyes existed!!!! i hav blu-grey eyes but i dnt no any1 wiv green eyes.