Question

What are the different types of mechanism of sex determination?

Accepted Answer

Different species use very different strategies for sex determination. Some rely entirely on environmental cues. Thus, in some animals like a few reptiles, the temperature at which fertilised eggs are kept determines whether the animals developing in the eggs will be male or female. Most human chromosomes have a maternal and a paternal copy, and we have $22$ such pairs. But one pair, called the sex chromosomes, is odd in not always being a perfect pair. Women have a perfect pair of sex chromosomes, both called X. But men have a mismatched pair in which one is a normal-sized X while the other is a short one called Y. So women are XX, while men are XY.

Due to the involvement of the X-chromosome in the determination of sex, it was designated to be the sex chromosome, and the rest of the chromosomes were named as autosomes. Grasshopper is an example of XO type of sex determination in which the males have only one X-chromosome besides the autosomes, whereas females have a pair of X-chromosomes.

Subha Raghavan and E Annapurna Solutions for Chapter: Heredity & Evolution, Exercise 3: PAPER-PEN TEST :

Subha Raghavan Biology Solutions for Exercise - Subha Raghavan and E Annapurna Solutions for Chapter: Heredity & Evolution, Exercise 3: PAPER-PEN TEST :

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