Redheads have a particularly high abundance of pheomelanin, with very little eumelanin, which ranges from brown to black. When it's activated, it causes melanocytes to specifically produce eumelanin over phenomelanin, which balances out an individual's ratio. Contrastingly, redheads are born with a genetic variant that causes MC1R to chemically function differently on melanocytes, which leads to less eumelanin and more pheomelanin production. These genetic variants are recessive, meaning in order to be born a redhead, either non-redhead parents are carriers 25 percent , or one parent is a redhead and the other is a carrier 50 percent ; or both parents are redheads almost percent. This makes redheads rare and unique both on the outside and inside.
Why Red Hair And Blue Eyes Is So Rare, Plus 4 Other Surprising Facts About Redheads
Are redheads with blue eyes really going extinct? | Pursuit by The University of Melbourne
February 7, For every people in the world, only one or two will have red hair. 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 per cent having red hair , the odds of having both traits are around 0. That's 13 million people, out of the 7.
Red Hair, Blue Eyes and Other Genetic Mutations
It is generally believed that all human beings share approximately 98 percent of their genetic makeup. Over the centuries though, DNA has evolved, changed and mutated, so some of us bear little similarities to our ancestors in regard to things like physical features and height. Even though many people go to great lengths to appear like everybody else, we almost all have something that makes us different from the next person. Usually it's a personality trait, some skill we know, or a talent that not many people have. Some of us, however, have physical characteristics that make us stand out in a crowd: such as our height, complexion, or the shapes of our faces.
Red hair or ginger hair occurs naturally in one to two percent of the human population , appearing with greater frequency two to six percent among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and lesser frequency in other populations. It is most common in individuals homozygous for a recessive allele on chromosome 16 that produces an altered version of the MC1R protein. Red hair varies in hue from a deep burgundy or bright copper , or auburn , to burnt orange or red-orange to strawberry blond. Characterized by high levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin and relatively low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin , it is associated with fair skin color , lighter eye color , freckles , and sensitivity to ultraviolet light. Cultural reactions to red hair have varied from ridicule to admiration with many common stereotypes in existence regarding redheads.