• Question: Why do people have different coloured eyeballs?

    Asked by charlottebeale123 to Ian, David, Helen, rhysphillips, Sarah on 23 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by gigi123.
    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      There is pigment in the iris, which is the colourful ring around your pupil. People have different pigments for their eyes for just the same reason people have different coloured hair – it’s just natural variation! Some people even have a different colour in each eye, like David Bowie!

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      The colour of your eyes is determined by the genes you inherit from your parents, but in quite a complicated way! So complicated in fact, that parents of any two eye colours can pretty much produce a child with any eye colour, which may or may not be the same as either of them. The most common eye colour is brown, and the least common is green. Babies are born with unpigmented eyes, so the colour develops over time and some children will change eye colour completely.

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