This document introduces a daily exercise and presentation on heredity and environment. The exercise contains questions about physical traits that animals inherit from their parents, such as skin color, fur color, and paw markings in kittens. It also asks about instincts that animals inherit, like web spinning in spiders or nursing in piglets.

1. This is a daily exercise to be used while teaching the SlideShare
presentation Heredity and Environment found in:
http://www.slideshare.net/MMoiraWhitehouse
Sponge 2
HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT
Moira Whitehouse PhD

2. 1. Animals inherit physical traits from their
parents. What do we mean by an animal’s
physical traits?
a. An animal’s physical appearance such as its
body shape, type of limbs, type and color of
body covering, etc.
b. Those things about an animal that allow us to
distinguish it from other animals.
c. How an animal satisfies its needs in its
habitat.
d. Both a and b

3. 2. Which physical
trait(s) did the
two kittens on the
right (B and C)
probably inherit A B C
from their
mother?
mother cat
Jo-14-us http://www.flickr.com
a. their white chest
b. the color of their fur
c. The white feet on their front legs
d. both a and c

4. 3. Looking at the
colors of the
mother cat and
kittens B and C,
what color would A B C
the father cat most
likely have been?
mother cat
Jo-14-us http://www.flickr.com
a. orange like the mother
b. brown
c. white
d. grey

5. 4. The picture on the left shows President Obama’s parents some
years ago. From the President’s picture on the right, what
physical trait regarding skin color did he acquired from them?
a. His father’s dark skin
b. Skin color between that of his parents.
c. His mother’s light skin
Photos from http://www.barackobama.com/
d. None of the above.

6. 5. Animals also inherit instincts from their
parents. What do we mean by instincts?
a. Physical traits that animals are born with.
b. Behaviors animals learn from their
environment.
c. Behaviors animals are born already knowing
how to do.
d. Behaviors that parents teach their offspring.

7. 6. Which of the following behavior is NOT an
instinct that an animal has inherited from its
parents?
a. a spider spinning a web
b. a piglet nursing (drinking milk) from its mother
c. an orangutan imitating the whistle of the
zookeeper
d. a shark swimming as soon as it is born

8. 7. Which of the following behaviors is an
instinct the animal inherited from its parents
(heredity)?
a. a prairie dog digging a burrow
b. a dog rolling over and playing dead
c. a horse herding cows
d. a chimpanzee painting