# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Is central heterochromia (two colours inside the same eye) that rare?

## Maciamo

Heterochromia iridium is a condition in which people have eyes of different colours. For example a blue eye and a brown eye (like Alexander the Great, David Bowie or Kate Bosworth). Or two different shades of blue (like Kiefer Sutherland). It is also known as *complete hetereochromia*. This is usually caused by genetic chimerism (inheriting a mix of two sets DNA from zygotes/embryos that fused together early in pregnancy). Chimeras really have two sets of DNA, depending on the body cells. Such people might also have patches of skin or hair with a slightly different colour. 

Here is a photo of David Bowie's eyes.




*Central heterochromia* is a different condition. It is when both eyes are a blend of two colours, typically with a darker ring around the pupil, like this. 




There are lots of possible variations. More examples:



According to Wikipedia, complete heterochromia (like David Bowie) is found in about 1% of the population, while central heterochromia is much rarer, with an incidence of just 0.05%. Unlike complete heterochromia, central heterochromia is hereditary in a dominant manner, which makes me wonder why central heterochromia is so rare. 

Famous people with central heterochromia include Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton and Alyson Hannigan (who plays Lily in How I Met Your Mother).

I have central heterochromia too (blue and yellow, almost like the 2nd picture), which I inherited from my father. Several members of my family have it, so I never thought of it as uncommon. I was shocked to find out that only 1 in 2000 people had it - although to be fair these statistics are probably for the global population, not Europe, where eye pigmentation has the most variations.

I also have hair heterochromia (a small patch a lighter hair on my head), so it's possible that I am also a genetic chimera.

Do you or any people you know have central heterochromia iridum?

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## Ordas

> Heterochromia iridium is a condition in which people have eyes of different colours. For example a blue eye and a brown eye (like Alexander the Great, David Bowie or Kate Bosworth). Or two different shades of blue (like Kiefer Sutherland). It is also known as *complete hetereochromia*. This is usually caused by genetic chimerism (inheriting a mix of two sets DNA from zygotes/embryos that fused together early in pregnancy). Chimeras really have two sets of DNA, depending on the body cells. Such people might also have patches of skin or hair with a slightly different colour. 
> 
> Here is a photo of David Bowie's eyes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Central heterochromia* is a different condition. It is when both eyes are a blend of two colours, typically with a darker ring around the pupil, like this. 
> 
> ...


I think I have brown and green. Have I?20181204_135803.jpg

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## suebiking

I have it and both my mother and father have. I never thought it was that rare. I have a light brown center with the rest being light green like my father but my mother has eyes almost like the yellow/blue in the picture though her are closer to grey or a very light green.
I know my late paternal grandfather had it and his father had it as well both had very light green with a light brown/dark green center. My great-great grandfather, although no picture of him is good enough to tell the eye colour, had plain blue eyes like his brothers whose pictures I have in my possession.
So, 1 in 2000 seems a quite low and although I am the only one in the family that inherited this from my paternal grandfather the rest having mostly light green/blue or light brown eyes, on the maternal side almost everyone has I can only think of four out of 30 relatives who don't have it.

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## Salento

Have you noticed differences of vision between the 2 eyes?
If so, from which eye color do you see better or worse?

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## Farstar

My wife has a beautiful central heterochromia. I did not know it was so rare.

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## gidai

> I have central heterochromia too (blue and yellow, almost like the 2nd picture), which I inherited from my father. Several members of my family have it, so I never thought of it as uncommon. I was shocked to find out that only 1 in 2000 people had it - although to be fair these statistics are probably for the global population, not Europe, where eye pigmentation has the most variations.
> 
> I also have hair heterochromia (a small patch a lighter hair on my head), so it's possible that I am also a genetic chimera.
> 
> Do you or any people you know have central heterochromia iridum?


I do not think it's so rare. Green to light brown in the center, I have myself. My paternal grand mother, my father and other relatives also have central heterochromia. I appreciate that 5 to 10% of my acquaintances have it. I did not make a statistic but among the Romanian, central heterochromia it is not at all so rare.
....But I can not give an example of complete heterochromia. I think to have one eye with a color and the other with other is much rarer here.

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## gidai

> Unlike complete heterochromia, central heterochromia is hereditary in a dominant manner, which makes me wonder why central heterochromia is so rare.


It would be very interesting if you create a poll.

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## Alcuin

> 


The eyes on the top-left of this grid are identical to mine. From what I've seen, most people with what we would consider 'grey' or 'green' eyes actually have eyes like this. My father has hazel-brown eyes with a heterochromia-type pattern, my mother has bright blue eyes. My eyes are my father's eyes but shifted towards the lighter end of the spectrum by my mother's, so I too must be a genetic chimera.

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## Maciamo

I have added a poll.

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## MOESAN

red again:
DAVID BOWIE: not heterochromy
Bowies most iconic feature in his appearance; his eyes. People have been asking this for years: _Whats up with David Bowies eyes? Why did he have one blue and one brown eye? (the article continues after the ad)_
 

 Well, despite what it seems, David Bowie _did not_ have different eye colors  both of his eyes were blue. The problem occurred in 1962 when Bowie was 15 years old, and got into a fight with one of his friends called George Underwood, over a girl they both wanted to date. During the fight, *Bowie was punched in the eye and his muscle that was responsible for contracting his iris was paralyzed, leaving it permanently dilated.*
This left Bowie with a condition called _anisocoria_, which means that his pupils were unequally dilated, and a limited vision in his left eye. Because of anisocoria, we got the impression that his eyes were different color when in fact, were the exact same color; what you see is his pupil, not the iris.
Interestingly, Bowie went on to thank Underwood for the injury, telling that his friend have him _a kind of mystique_ which is true, considering how much discussion went on because of this particularity.

_I add: when the so little left of pigmented zone seems not blue (when the pupil is at its largest), it's because the pigmented tissue is "cruched" or heaped -
for my part, I saw very few persons with two eyes differently pigmented, and the few I know has rather one eye of one colour and the second eye with this same colour (top) and another colour ( bottom), not always completely opposed (say: dark opposed to light or the contrary), but I saw so few of them;
for me, the symetric heterochromy centered around the pupil is the most common, in Europeans, very commoner than "pure" coloured eyes; even among brown eyed people (except the darkest, very seldom among 'europoids'; it seems that in not pure coloured eyes the process of appreciable surpigmentation begins as a rule at the proximity of the pupils before gaining ground around it._
_Some heterochromy exists even in the larger part of the iris, more visible among fair eyes, under the form of beams very often, sometimes (rare) under the form of "patchwork" (the greenish brown eyes of my mother, and the rather blue eyes of a school fellow)_

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## Carlos

Attachment 10578
Este es mi ojo, ¿cuál sería la heterochromia de esa central? 

Attachment 10579
Saludos, estoy cansado de tanta intimidad. 

Una prima mía, la hija de un hermano de mi madre, tiene ojos marrones, pero uno es mucho más claro que el otro. Y un primo mío por parte de un hermano de mi padre es marrón y cuando era niño tuve varios mechones rubios y más adultos se habían unido en uno grande.

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## italouruguayan

This is my eye. My father has blue eyes, and my mother, dark brown. My sisters and my brother have eyes similar to mine. I know there are several genes involved in the determination of the color of the eyes...in this case, it must be an intermediate color...Attachment 10583

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## italouruguayan

I did not mean "color" in the sense of a single color, but as a combination.

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## gidai

Amazing! After 8 voters, 7 have _central heterochromia ! Where are those without_ _heterochromia?  Do not vote?_

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## gidai

Not mine, but is almost identical.

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## Carlos

`^^^
Not worth, put a picture of your eye. Cheer up a flash in the eye is fine, come put a picture of your eye, not google.

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## italouruguayan

Nobody else votes? Apparently, those of us who have some form of heterochromia are a vast majority .... :)

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## Foxy

I have exactly the same eyes as 2nd from the right middle row except the "yellow" around the pupil is a bit thicker. My mother has the exact same as 2nd one from the left 1st row. 

Now I checked both father & siblings. None of them have it. 


But my brother has blue eyes where the blue is darker near the pupil (exactly like Carlos's example of darker brown leading to light brown). Such dark to light shading of the _same_ coloration however is *not* central heterochromia. Heterochromia literally means *different* color. 

So maybe a few people confused such varying shades of the _same_ color in voting they have central heterochromia which isn't correct (no offense).

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## HGMIVL

I have central heterochromia (blue with gold center) as does my brother (full sibling) and my sister (adopted). My father had blue eyes and my mother had green eyes.

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## MOESAN

central heterochromia is very usual - it depends maybe on multigenic pigmentation, but it seems to me that the way an eye overpigments itself is always from center to outside; the external darker circle in faircoloured eyes is just a physical lighting effect (externmost parts of eye less lighted), I think spite I'm not 100% sure.
WHat is very seldom is the eyes with two different colours of iris.

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## firetown

> I also have hair heterochromia (a small patch a lighter hair on my head),


I am finding very little information on it. Can you share what you have been able to find?
banner.jpg
Does this qualify as hair heterochromia?

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## drsibel

My grandfather had complete hetereochromia. I have _central hetereochromia._

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## Carlos

I found out who I inherited my green eyes from thanks to My Heritage photo repairer lets you repair x photos and then it's paid for. It even has the outer ring in the eye that I plugged into yourdnaportal. 


It's my great-grandmother's father.




She is my paternal great-great-grandmother, the mother of my paternal great-grandfather and the mother-in-law of the previous one, although she has been half repaired I have not inherited her eyes; although inheriting the structure of her face would not have been bad at all.

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