Monogenic inheritance

1. Two black female mice were crossed with a grey male, in several litters female A produced
19 black and 18 grey young. Female B produced 25 black young.
What can you deduce about the nature of black and grey fur colour in mice, and what are
the genotypes of the parents?

2. Two yellow Bandycoots were thought by their keeper to be homozygous for coat colour.
When they were mated all the babies were yellow. However when these offspring were later
mated amongst themselves some of the F2 generation were orange. This meant that one of
the grandparents was heterozygous. How would you find out which grandparent was
heterozygous?

3. In the Giant Boring Beetle (Coleopsis yawnii) green eyes are dominant over blue. A blue-eyed
beetle, both of whose parents had green eyes, was mated with a green-eyed beetle. They
had one baby beetle which was blue-eyed. Deduce the genotypes of all these five
individuals? If they have another baby beetle could it be green-eyed, and if so determine its
genotype.

4. In humans the ability to taste phenylthiourea depends on the presence of a dominant allele.
The gene is not sex linked.
a. Construct a pedigree chart to show a homozygous taster man and a non-taster woman
and their two children.
b. One of these children marries a person of the same genotype for this gene. Construct
a pedigree chart to show this and their three children. Each child has a different
genotype.

5. Grandpa has blood group O. His first child, Horace, married a group O woman and they had
two children, Belinda and Bertha, who were both group B.
Grandpa’s second child was group A, but the third child in the family Clint, was group O.
Grandpa thought it wise to tell his children before they studied genetics that the third
child had been adopted.
a. Deduce granny’s genotype showing all your reasoning
b. Why did Grandpa decide to say Clint was adopted?
6. Web feet is a sex linked characteristic in Dingbats. Female dingbats are XX and males XY. A
webbed male is crossed with a homozygous normal female and the baby Dingbat is a female
with normal feet.
Deduce whether the web allele is dominant ore recessive,
If their next baby is a male determine whether it will have web or normal feet

7. Haemophilia is a sex-linked genetic disease which results in the blood failing to clot properly.
It is caused by a recessive allele on the X chromosome. The diagram below shows the
occurrence of haemophilia in one family.

a. Using the following symbols:

H = dominant allele h = recessive allele

State the genotypes of the individuals 1, 2, 5, 6 and 9. Individual 1 had a

genotype of XHXh

b. State the probability of individual 8 being a carrier of haemophilia

c. Explain why only females can be carriers of haemophilia.

8. Coat colour in domestic cats is controlled by a gene whose locus is sex linked. Male cats may
be black or ginger. Female cats may be black, ginger or tortoiseshell (a patchwork pattern of
black and ginger). The allele for black coat is CB whilst the allele for a ginger coat is CG. The
alleles are codominant.
A male black cat and a ginger female were crossed.

a. Show, by means of a genetic diagram, the expected genotypes and phenotypes of the
offspring.
b. State the possible parents of a black female cat.
c. Explain why tortoiseshell cats are always female.