Question

A father parakeet has blue chest feathers while a mother parakeet has green chest feathers. Which of these statements explains why their baby parakeet has blue chest feathers?
Responses

a
The baby parakeet inherited its copies of the gene for feather color from its father and not from its mother. Those genes connect together to make its feathers blue.
The baby parakeet inherited its copies of the gene for feather color from its father and not from its mother. Those genes connect together to make its feathers blue.

b
The baby parakeet inherited its copies of the gene for feather color from its father and not from its mother. Just like its father’s genes, those genes instruct for proteins that connect in ways that make its feathers blue.
The baby parakeet inherited its copies of the gene for feather color from its father and not from its mother. Just like its father’s genes, those genes instruct for proteins that connect in ways that make its feathers blue.

c
The baby parakeet inherited one copy of the gene for feather color from its father and one copy from its mother. Those genes connect together to make its feathers blue.
The baby parakeet inherited one copy of the gene for feather color from its father and one copy from its mother. Those genes connect together to make its feathers blue.

d
The baby parakeet inherited one copy of the gene for feather color from its father and one copy from its mother. That gene combination instructs for proteins that connect in ways that make its feathers blue.

Answer 1

d

Explanation: offspring get one allele from each parent. The baby has the allele combination that produces the proteins (or lack of a pigment) that result in blue chest feathers — i.e., it inherited the blue allele from each parent (father is blue; the mother can be a green carrier), so the genotype produces the blue phenotype.