if an anglo man and hispanic woman conceived together, what color would their newborn’s eyes most likely be?
You need to know the actual color of the eyes involved as well as family history. Going by the sterotypes and dominant traits, most likely brown. When a blue-eyed person and a brown eyed person breed, it usually, but nor always, produces a brown-eyed child.
“Hispanic” is not a racial category, but an ethnic category (of sorts). There are many hispanics of primarily European heritage, while others have primarly American Indian or Afican ancestry. The majority of those in the US are of mixed European-Indian ancestry. In general, they have brown eyes, but a significant number of these would carry the recessive allele for blue eyes because of partial European ancestry.
As Shagnasty says, the most likely outcome is brown eyes, but there is a reasonable probability of blue eyes even if the anglo partner has brown eyes. But without knowing the specific details of ancestry it is impossible to say much more.
Depends what you mean. If you mean literally the eye colour eye colour of the newborn then it is most likely blue. Provided that both parents are reasonably light skinned the child will most likely be born with blue eyes.
If you mean their adult eye colour, then the same colour as if two anglo-saxon people concieved together. Most people, no matter what their ancestry, have brown eyes. Pick any two people on the planet and ask this question and the answer will always be brown.
There are several possibilities, depending on whether the parents were blue eyed, brown eyed, or brown eyed but carriers of the blue-eyed gene. Both anglo and hispanic people could be any of the three. Of course, it’s more likely that the hispanic person would have brown eyes and not be a carrier for blue-eyes, but a quick look at spanish-language cable TV reveals dozens of blonde blue-eyed hispanics. Of course they’re not typical, a typical mexican is mestizo, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have blue eyes even if they’re mestizo. Two brown eyed people can have blue eyed children.
the hispanic female’s ancestry is primarily of Guatemala, and most-southern border of Mexico; the male’s ancestry is from Ireland. Her eyes are brown w/dark brn hair, his eyes are blue w/blonde hair.
The answer is the same. It is very likely that any children will have brown eyes.
So, the female’s gene for eye color will always be dominant?
Nobody said that at all. What they said, is the likelihood of brown eyes is higher, due to brown being a more dominant trait. There’s still a chance they will have a blue eyed child, especially if the brown eyed parent has blue genes in their backgroung, but it’s less likely.
got it! thanx.
Mrs. Gas is Egyptian with dark brown eyes. I have hazel eyes. She said she wanted to have a child with blue eyes, and I said not likely. What I didn’t know was that her father, who died when she was 10, had blue eyes. That plus the fact that my own father had blue eyes conspired to bless us with a Little Gas with blue eyes due to the recessive blue eye genes’ being on both sides.
Our second Little Gas has brown eyes like his mom.
Each parent has two copies (alleles) of each gene. Each parent passes one copy of one of their genes at random to the child, and the other parent provides the other. In the case of eye color, the allele for brown is dominant over that for blue. That is, all it takes is one copy of the brown allele to produce brown eyes; for blue eyes, both copies must be the blue allele.
Guatemala is pretty heavily Indian, with relatively little European admixture even among meztizos compared to other Central American countries such as Costa Rica. The odds are pretty good that the female has two brown alleles (BB), rather than one brown and one blue (Bb). The male certainly has two blue alleles (bb). Their offspring will thus very likely be Bb, or brown eyed. (If she does happen to be Bb, the odds are 75% that a particular child will be brown eyed.)
50%, maybe? (75% is the number for a cross of two Bb parents.) For a Bb/bb cross, every time, the bb contributes a b. Half the time (statistically), the Bb contributes a B (resulting in Brown eyes and a hidden carried gene for blue). The other half the time (statistically), the Bb contributes a b which meets up with the b from the bb parent – resulting in blue eyes and nuthin’ else.
Of course, I got myself in trouble on another thread, even sticking to this old, simple, set of explanations. Someone referred me to a thread explaining how it doesn’t really work this way, eye color is now believed to be governed by more than one pairing, and claiming that two blue-eyed parents can have a brown-eyed child. I have to say, I didn’t quite get it.
Yes, you are correct. Sorry for the slip. I was thinking of the Bb x Bb cross. The resulting genotypes will be 2 Bb:2 bb, or 50% brown eyed.
There are other genes involve, and other alleles, than just the classic brown and blue alleles, resulting in the green and hazel-eyed phenotypes, etc. While I have not heard of a specific mechanism that would produce a brown eyed offspring from two blue eyed parents, I suppose it might occur, but it would be very rare.
:smack: Clearly, this not true. It is an oversimplification that doesn’t help answer the question. Eye color, like every other inherited characteristic, is determined by genes, often more than one pair, we get from each parent. Such is the nature of heredity, and variety, and explains why not only aren’t everyone’s eyes brown, but pretty much everyone looks different in all other ways, too. Sure, there are some pretty common features in the human population, and maybe that’s your point. But it’s the variety that drives evolution, so let’s keep those in mind. xo, C.
Well, it kinda does. Unless you get real specific, and say that both people are native to a very small geographic area where blue eyes are more common than brown, the answer is always going to be “brown”. If you know the country of origin of the two people, there might be some instances when “brown” is not the right answer, but that would be very unusual. The majority eye color in almost every country is brown.
**CC: **Keep in mind that the OP is asking what the most likely eye color is. No on is saying you can predict exactly what the eye color will be, but you can give odds, and the odds of “brown” are > 50% for most countries.
Just speaking from experience here, my dad’s family is from northern Mexico, and is largely native. All of my relatives on that side of the family have black hair and brown eyes. My mom’s family is from all over the place, but mostly northern europe. She has light reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. They had 4 kids, and here’s how the eye and hair color turned out:
Black Hair/Brown Eyes
Dark Brown Hair/Brown Eyes
Black Hair/Green Eyes
Reddish Brown Hair/(Very weird) Hazel Eyes
So, uh, pace, are there congratulations in order? 
uugghhh, yeah… it was a question my daughter raised, she’s expecting sigh And though she blind-sided her parents, first with her engagement, the week following she announced the other news, we’re all trying to be happy and positive :-]