Name: EYE COLOR - Why do we have different color eyes?
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T14:26:06.000Z
Duration: 1 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

If you found yourself as a time-traveling cat.

You would find all humans had brown eyes.

At some point in the last 6,000 to 10,000 years.

One person was born with a horrifying genetic mutation.

But a genetic mutation that resulted in them having blue eyes.

Every person alive today with blue eyes is a direct descendant of this one person.

If this mutation did not occur, we would all still probably have brown eyes today.

This gene mutation affects the OCA2 gene.

And reduces the melanin production in the colored part of the eye, called the iris.

Melanin is a pigment, and the amount of it in our eyes is what gives them their color.

The more melanin in your eyes, the darker your eyes will be.

Green eyes have a small amount of melanin.

Brown eyes have a higher percentage of melanin.

Eyes are thought to have been solely brown 10,000 years and beyond to help protect against the sun's damaging rays.

Living closer to the equator where the sun's rays are stronger.

Blue is not actually the real color of eyes without melanin present.

It all has to do with the scattering of light which gives them color.

Watch our video on the subject to find out why this is.

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EYE COLOR - Why do we have different color eyes?

present

completely

amount

mutation