HEREDITY

By: Ms. Nissi

What is heredity?
HEREDITY refers to the passing on of traits of an
organism to its young.
Living things reproduce to ensure the survival of
their own kind.
When the parents reproduce, they pass on their
CHARACTERISTICS to their young.
The young then inherit these characteristics. This
process is called heredity.
Heredity
The characteristics can be physical, which means
we can see them since they are visible.
Examples of these are hair type, shape of lips,
shape of nose, skin colour, hair colour, eyes colour,
presence of dimples, etc.
Other characteristics can not be seen, we refer
these as inherent characteristics.
Examples of these are genetic diseases and blood
type.
Heredity
Physical, behavioural and physiological
characteristics can be inherited from our parents
or ancestors.
While physical and physiological both refer to
bodies, physical means the body itself while
physiological refers to the body’s functions.
Physical development refers to the growth of the
physical body, such as growth of hair, bones,
muscles, organs or any other physical aspect of a
species.
Heredity
Physiological development, on the other hand,
refers to the body’s capacity to increase certain
functions of the body. For example, a long-distance
runner over time builds strong muscles, a physical
development, but he will also increase his ability to
transfer oxygen faster, a physiological
development.
Thus, examples of physiological can be surviving
in very little water or withstand cold temperature.
Inherited Characteristics
Type of earlobe
Height
Skin colour
Eye colour
Hair type
Presence of dimples
Type of eyelid
There are some special characteristics that are
used to identify a person.
They are our fingerprint, pattern of iris in the eyes
and voice.
These characteristicss are help as identification to
solve crimes, to allow entry in certain buildings
and many more.
• In Other Animal
Skin colour
Fur type
• In Plants
Like animal, plants pass on some of their
characteristics to their young when they
reproduce.
- colour of the fruit, flower and leaf
- shape of the fruit, flower and leaf
- size of the fruit, flower and leaf
- taste of the fruit
What characteristics are Not Passed on From
Parents to Their Young?

As a living things interact with their environment, they

may develop certain characteristics to adapt to the
environment.
Characteristics that develop as a result of interaction
with the environment are non-inherited
characteristics
Some non-inherited characteristics are:

Likes and dislikes

Learned behaviour
Abilities or skills
Family tree - Pedigree
It is important that we learn how to draw family trees
because family trees help us to understand how
different people in the family inherit their
characteristics.
Pedigree is another type of family tree using symbols.
 The uses of family tree:
- Understand how different people in the family inherit their
characteristics
- Understand the relationship among the member of family
clearly
- to know the number of family
When the family members who
are coming from the father side are
called paternal members and if
they are from the mother side are
called maternal members
Maternal Paternal