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Question 106

A student writes that a population of mice living on pale sand developed pale fur because the mice needed better camouflage. What actually happened in that population?

  1. The mice were right to change, but the change took several attempts
  2. Pale fur was already present in a few mice, and those mice survived betterCorrect answer
  3. The sand changed the fur of each mouse, and the change was then inherited
  4. The mice inherited pale fur from an ancestor that had chosen it deliberately

Explanation

A need does not reach into an organism's DNA, so no mouse can produce the allele its situation calls for. The differences have to be present first, arriving by chance, and the pale sand then does nothing more than decide which of the mice already there are seen and eaten.

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Question 106: A student writes that a population of mice living on pale… · Genetics Basics · Questena