Eye Color

Blue Eyes (Discovered in the Siberian Husky)

Alternative Names: Heterochromia, Bi-eyed, Odd eyes (two different colored eyes)

Blue Eyes (Discovered in the Siberian Husky) Photo

The Blue Eyes variant is associated with blue eyes and heterochromia, which is when the eyes are two different colors, and is located in the ALX4 gene.

More Info

Did you know?

All puppies have blue or bluish eyes when they first open around two weeks of age, but will change to their permanent adult color by around 16 weeks of age.

How it works

Dogs with one or two copies of the blue eye variant are likely to have one or two blue eyes.

Prevalence

1 in 18 dogs

has one or more copy of this genetic variant in our testing.

Technical Details

Gene ALX4
Variant Duplication
Chromosome 18
Coordinate Start 44,791,419
Coordinate End 44,890,185

All coordinates reference CanFam3.1

References & Credit

Credit to our scientific colleagues:

Deane-Coe, P. E., Chu, E. T., Slavney, A., Boyko, A. R., & Sams, A. J. (2018). Direct-to-consumer DNA testing of 6,000 dogs reveals 98.6-kb duplication associated with blue eyes and heterochromia in Siberian Huskies. PLoS Genetics. View the article