 Genetics Info & Tutorial: Chromosome Pairs |
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When animals reproduce, the chromosomes are copied and given to the offspring. If each animal only had one copy of each chromosome, it would only have one parent, and it would look exactly like its parent. But we know this is not the case. Chromosomes are present in pairs in all animals. Since the father has a pair of each, and the mother has a pair of each, they can only pass down one of their chromosomes from each pair, otherwise the offspring would then have 2 pairs, and their offspring would have 4 pairs, etc. The result is that each parent can’t give ALL of its genetic material to its offspring, only half of it.
When the sperm fertilizes the egg, it creates paired-up chromosomes in the new cell. As you can see in the above picture, the result is an animal that has half of its mother’s genes and half of its father’s genes. This is why you don’t look exactly like either of your parents, and why there’s so much variety in animals of the same species. 
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