Cats normally have a total of 18 toes, 5 on each front paw and 4 on each back paw. But some cats express the dominant phenotype for polydactyly, which results in the development of extra toes on one or more paws. Jake, a Canadian tabby cat, has 28 toes and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the cat with the most toes. Suppose that Jake mates with a female cat, Lucy, who has 18 total toes. Over several years, they have multiple litters and a total of 16 kittens (10 males and 6 females). The total number of toes on each kitten ranges from 21 to 25. If we use the letter P to represent the polydactyly gene, what is Jake's genotype? a. Ppb. ppc. PPd. You cannot determine Jake's genotype from this information

Question

Biology

Jenna Burke

26 August, 11:34

Cats normally have a total of 18 toes, 5 on each front paw and 4 on each back paw. But some cats express the dominant phenotype for polydactyly, which results in the development of extra toes on one or more paws. Jake, a Canadian tabby cat, has 28 toes and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the cat with the most toes. Suppose that Jake mates with a female cat, Lucy, who has 18 total toes. Over several years, they have multiple litters and a total of 16 kittens (10 males and 6 females). The total number of toes on each kitten ranges from 21 to 25. If we use the letter P to represent the polydactyly gene, what is Jake's genotype? a. Ppb. ppc. PPd. You cannot determine Jake's genotype from this information

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Answers (1)

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Quinten · Answer 1

c. PP

Explanation:

Jake has dominant phenotype for polydactyly so he must be PP or Pp. Lucy has normal number of toes which is caused by recessive genotype so she is definitely pp.

If Jake was Pp, Pp X pp would produce half Pp and half pp kittens which means that some kittens should be born with recessive trait 18 toes. However none of the kittens have 18 toes and all of them have 21 to 25 toes. So Jake can not be Pp.

Jake is PP because when PP X pp all the kittens will have Pp genotype resulting in dominant phenotype of polydactyly. All the kittens have more than the recessive 18 toes hence they are Pp. However they have variable number of toes because polydactyly trait has variable expressivity.