What is inheritance?

Have you ever noticed that offspring often look a little like both of their parents?

A puppy might have the same colour fur as its mother but have a face that looks more like its father.

When living things reproduce they pass on characteristics to their offspring. This is known as inheritance.

There are some key characteristics that we inherit from our birth parents. These include your eye colour, skin colour or the shape of your ears as well as many other things.

While we inherit some characteristics from our parents, there are many differences between us too.

Emmet explains inheritance in this video.

• Characteristics like eye colour and genetic diseases are inherited.

• Other characteristics like interests or style are environmental meaning that they are learned by the offspring.

• Genetics is the study of inheritance.

• All living things, including plants, share characteristics with their offspring.

• Farmers have bred cattle, like cows and pigs, using genes to make them better for farming for hundreds of years. They have done this by breeding selected cows that produced the most milk or pigs that produced the most meat.

• All inherited traits are passed down through genes, which are contained in DNA.

Did you know?

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was an Austrian-Czech biologist who became known as the ‘Father of Genetics’.

Mendel conducted experiments using pea plants to measure the traits that were past down between reproducing plants and their offspring.

He proved that characteristics and traits were passed down through the plant's genes.

All living things produce offspring of the same kind but the offspring are rarely identical to the parents. There are variations which make them different.

We don't inherit everything from our parents. For example, things like hairstyles, language, scars and ear piercings are not passed on.

Identical twins are often very similar to look at. If you have a brother or sister and aren't an identical twin you are still likely to be very similar, but you are probably not identical.

This is because different offspring from the same parents don't inherit the same mix of characteristics.

These differences are called variation.

Characteristics – Distinguishing features of an organism.

Genes – Part of the DNA that passed down by parents to their offspring. DNA determines characteristics and traits.

Inheritance – When living things reproduce they pass on characteristics to their offspring.

Offspring – An animal's young.

Reproduce – The way that animals create offspring.

Variations – Things which make each organism different.