• Question: Can animals gain characteristics from their parents?

    Asked by elladooly to Valeria, Louise, Kevin, Jo, Charlotte on 11 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Valeria Senigaglia

      Valeria Senigaglia answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Hi,
      yes animal born with a set of characteristics (e.g. the eyes color, the number of legs, etc) that comes from their parents, is called inheritance. So if a butterfly has white wings it means that at least one of her parents has white wings as well. This characteristics are written in a code called DNA that is passed from parents to children.
      Moreover some animals also inherit personality traits from their parents. For example is likely that a seal with very brave parents will also be brave.

    • Photo: Kevin Mahon

      Kevin Mahon answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Yes – this is how evolution works really, offspring gaining the characteristics/traits of their parents. This is what causes genes to pass on and allows natural selection to work! These traits can be physical traits but also certain behaviours can be passed on.

      There is however, a tiny bit of wiggle room – an animals appearance isn’t necessarily ‘set in stone’. Colour is something which can change rather readily – Darwin called it ‘the most fleeting of characteristics’. An artic fox for example, can change its fur colour within its lifetime to better suit its environment.

    • Photo: Joanna Cruden

      Joanna Cruden answered on 22 Jun 2012:

      Sometimes you can throwbacks to previous generations, and some characteristics skip a generation, for example when people have twins it usually skips a generation before the next pair

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