Page 48 - Science Coursebook

3.3 Inheritance

Everyone knows that offspring tend to be like their parents. But

why is this? And why are they not ever exactly the same?
Each of the animals in the photographs has inherited many
of its features from its parents. Inheritance is the passing of

features from parents to their offspring.

A family of cats. A family of elephants. Giraffes always give birth to

giraffes, not to horses or tigers.

Questions

1 List three features that the young giraffe has inherited from its parents.

2 List three features that the kittens have inherited from their parents.

Genes
You are human because you inherited human
features from your parents. An animal that
belongs to one species always gives birth to
young that belong to the same species.

This happens because each animal has a set
of instructions in its cells. These instructions
are called genes. The genes determine the
characteristics of the animal. They provide
a set of instructions for building an animal
belonging to a particular species.

All organisms have genes. Plants, bacteria and
fungi all have genes.

Genes are passed on (transferred) to offspring

from parents. Half of your genes came from In each generation, children inherit genes from both of
your father, and half from your mother. This is their parents.
why children tend to have some characteristics
like their father, and some like their mother.

46 3 Variation and inheritance

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