And when you meet a red head with blue eyes, you are looking at the rarest colour combination of all for human beings. Around 17 per cent of people have blue eyes, and when combined with 1-2 per cent having red hair, the odds of having both traits are around 0.17 per cent.
That means both parents must carry a copy of the gene to produce a red-haired child and often the trait skips generations. Rarest of all are redheads with blue eyes. The majority have brown eyes or hazel or green shades.
Having red hair and blue eyes is the rarest hair/eye color combination possible. The odds of a person having both of those recessive traits is around 0.17%. Instead, most redheads have brown, hazel or green eyes, according to Medical Daily.
1 in a million
If you have red hair and blue eyes, then this day is particularly special for you. The odds of having this lucky combo are approximately 0.17 percent. Just to put that into perspective, that's just 13 million people out of the 7.6 billion on Earth.
What is the rarest eye color? Green is the rarest eye color in the world, with only 2% of the world's population (and fewer than one out of ten Americans) sporting green peepers, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).
The title of rarest hair colour/eye colour combination belongs to red haired folks with blue eyes. According to Medical Daily, both the blue eye trait and the red hair trait are recessive, so their likelihood of simultaneous appearance is pretty slim.
Red-haired and blue-eyed actresses Amy Adams, Nicole Kidman, Marcia Cross, Christina Hendricks, Kirsten Dunst, and Evan Rachel Wood.
Mostly coined in Australia than anywhere else in the world, 'bluey' is (generally) used as an affectionate nickname for a redhead. It is thought by some to have derived from the early 1900s as a form of irony. Blue is evidently contrasting with red, thus being used as a joke.
According to Health Magazine, redheads can produce their own vitamin D when exposed to low levels of light. 4. You may not need as much pain medication. The gene responsible for red hair (MC1R) also releases a hormone that is similar to endorphins which limit the feeling of pain.
Fun facts about red hair strands
Redheads are less likely to go grey. The pigment in red hair typically fades over time from red to blonde and white, but not grey. Redheads produce more Vitamin D in a shorter amount of time than people with other hair colors.
Ireland has the highest number of red-haired people per capita in the world, with the percentage of those with red hair at around 10%.
According to an article by evolutionary biology professor Mark Elgar, PhD, of the University of Melbourne, blue-eyed redheads are the absolute rarest, with 0.17% of the population having that combination of hair and eye color.
Both characteristics come from recessive genes, which like to come in pairs. Redheads probably won't go grey. That's because the pigment just fades over time. So they will probably go blonde and even white, but not grey.
Research has shown that people with red hair perceive pain differently than others. They may be more sensitive to certain types of pain and can require higher doses of some pain-killing medications. However, studies suggest that their general pain tolerance may be higher.
A majority of redheads have light colored eyes, which has less pigment. This causes sensitivity to the sun's harmful rays more than brown or black eyes. It's very important that all redheads wear sunglasses to keep their eyes safe.
So, about 0.25% of the world population matches those attributes.
Previous studies had shown that redheads inherit two versions of the MC1R gene that leads to red hair – one from their mum and one from their dad. Although almost everyone with red hair has two copies of the red-haired version of MC1R, not everyone carrying two red-haired versions is a redhead.
Recessive traits like red hair can skip generations because they can hide out in a carrier behind a dominant trait. The recessive trait needs another carrier and a bit of luck to be seen. This means that it can sometimes take a few generations to finally make its presence known.
About 17% of the world's population has blue eyes, and an estimated 1-2% of people worldwide are said to have red hair. This means that the odds of having both red hair and blue eyes are around 0.17%, Mark Elgar, Ph.D., an evolutionary biology professor at the University of Melbourne, said in 2018.
There is no definitive record of what he looked like.
Most accounts describe him as tall and strong with a flowing mane of hair and a long, bushy beard. Perhaps the most surprising description comes courtesy of the 14th century Persian chronicler Rashid al-Din, who claimed Genghis had red hair and green eyes.
Since red hair is a recessive trait, the children of two redheaded parents will almost always be redheaded as well. In contrast, if only one parent is redheaded and the other has brown hair, there is a higher chance that the children will display the dominant trait and will have brown hair.
Which hair colour do women think is the sexiest? Most women think brunette hair is the sexiest, as 25% of those polled favoured this option. Womens' second preference is blonde, which was voted as the sexiest hair colour by 19.6% of women. Again, red took third spot, accounting for 11.8% of womens' votes.
The contest for the most attractive hair colour is obviously won by the blonde color with 35% of the overall vote, followed by the brunette. The bronze goes to Pippi Longstocking (people 30 and above will understand ? ). And the fourth place is for black hair colour.