A delightful case of pheomelanism

Originally uploaded by e³°°°

Redhead Day 2009, Breda (the Netherlands) see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redheadday & www.roodharigen.nl

The pigment pheomelanin gives red hair its distinctive colour. Red hair has far more pheomelanin than other hair colours, but far less of the dark pigment eumelanin.

The genetics of red hair, discovered in 1997, appears to be associated with the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), which is found on chromosome 16.

Red hair is the rarest natural hair colour, aproximately 1% to 2 % of the human population has red hair. Scotland : 13% of the population, Ireland : 10 %; Wales : 10 %.