Question

Are blue eyes homozygous or heterozygous?

Answer 1

Homozygous:

If an individual has two identical alleles (RR or rr), they are called homozygous.

Heterozygous:

If an individual has a distinct allele (Rr), they are called heterozygous.

Blue eyes:

1. Blue eyes are a recessive version of the eye color gene whereas the dominant version of the eye color gene is brown.
2. If both the alleles for eye color present are recessive, the phenotype developed will be a blue color.
3. The presence of heterozygous alleles for eye color will result in the development of a brown color phenotype only.
4. Thus for blue color phenotype to be generated, the alleles must be homozygous recessive.