Question

Mother gives birth to a baby but the baby has characters of both
parents. How is this possible?


NCERT Class VIII
Science - Exemplar Problems

Chapter 9. Reproduction in Animals

Answer 1

Mother gives birth to baby that resemble their parent.
In sexual reproduction of human beings , both males and females bear special reproductive cells , called gametes. the male gamete is the sperm and the female gamete is the ovum(the egg cell). The two gametes unite during fertilization forming Zygote. Zygote develops into an embryo and embryo into baby.
Since Zygote has both father and mother's contribution ,therefore baby has characters of both parents.

Answer 2

The zygote is formed from both mother and father' cells. Thus it carries half the chromosomes of father and half of mother. Out of which the dominating genes plays their card and get adopted by the chromosomes and as a result a child is born with half the characteristics of mother and half of father