A person’s gaze is the first thing we pay attention to when we first interact with them. It is something instinctive: our eyes are going to meet the other person’s eyes so that, from that visual reference point, we can connect with the emotions and feelings that the other person has.

With that in mind, it is normal for people with green eyes to catch our attention . Such a small part of the face is capable of attracting so much attention that it is common to see parents calculate the possibilities of having offspring with this trait.

But green eyes are not just pure aesthetics, because they are fascinating in other ways as well.

Funny facts about people with green eyes

Below you can find out what are the characteristics of the people with green eyes that make this feature so mysterious and fascinating.

1. The iris shade is one of the rarest

It is estimated that only 2% of the world’s population has green eyes , which means that only those with scarlet, black or red eyes are less numerous. This can be due to several reasons.

On the one hand, it is quite possible that only a sufficient number of people with green eyes appeared in relatively recent times, a few thousand years ago, which means that they have not had time to mix much with the DNA chains of all human beings. It is estimated that the mutation that produced this characteristic appeared in central or northern European tribes sometime during the Bronze Age .

On the other hand, the chances of having a child with green eyes only exceed 50% if both parents also have that trait. If only one of them has it, they fall below 40%.

2. This feature first appeared in Europe

In addition to the rarity of this feature, it is estimated that more than half of people with green eyes live in Europe . Hungary and especially Iceland are the places where this physical trait is most abundant. Outside of this continent, some ethnic groups belonging to the Indo-Iranian zone also have high concentrations of people with green eyes, although it is not clear whether they have a common ancestor or the gene responsible for that shade appeared in isolation in Asia.

Even rarer cases of green-eyed families are found in some areas of North Africa traditionally occupied by the Berber ethnic group, such as the Rif region in Morocco, Kabylia in Algeria, or Liquian in China.

3. Green irises take months to appear

Interestingly, it is extremely rare that newborn babies already have green eyes. Normally, those who get to have them that colour do so after their first year of life , and on the day of delivery they have them blue or greyish. It is believed that this is due to a certain genetic propensity for the melanin in the eyes to be distributed according to specific developmental rhythms.

4. They have the most attractive eye color

Most studies based on questionnaires show that, at least for Western society, green eyes are the most aesthetic and attractive with blue eyes in second place. Perhaps the fact that they are rare can influence this, since the law of scarcity indicates that we tend to value more that which is difficult to find.

5. Its coloration is not due to iris pigments

Strangely enough, people with green eyes do not have them that color because they have pigments of those shades located in those membranes. In fact, the amount of melanin, the substance that gives color to body parts, is relatively low compared to those with dark irises. If we were to attribute a color to the iris, it would be more similar to yellow .

What happens is that the shape of the eye and the lens effect it produces causes certain wavelengths of light to filter through this organ. This is similar to what happens when sunlight enters the atmosphere, making the sky look blue or pink depending on how far away the star is at each moment of the day.

6. In the past they were discriminated against

Although today it is considered an attractive feature, there were moments in history when the rare and mysterious character of this tonality was what attracted the most attention. As a consequence, many women were considered suspected of being witches if they had green eyes. If you add to this the presence of red hair, the combination could easily lead to execution.

Bibliographic references:

  • Frost, P. (2011). “Why do Europeans have such colorful hair and eyes?” (cogweb.ucla.edu). Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.
  • White, D., Rabago-Smith, M. (2011). Genotype-phenotype associations and humaneye color. Journal of Human Genetics.