Butterflies can produce hundreds of offspring per cross. In a certain variety of butterflies, a maternally-imprintable gene is responsible for wing phenotype. Two possible alleles for this gene are w for normal wings and wc for crinkled wings. Which of the following pieces of information would be helpful in predicting the wing phenotype of a male offspring from a cross?

a. look at the father's phenotype
b. know the mother's genotype
c. look at the mother's phenotype
d. know the father's genotype

Explanation: Butterflies can produce hundreds of offspring per cross. In a certain variety of butterflies, a maternally-imprintable gene is responsible for wing phenotype.

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Oseni Oseni · Answer 2 · 2021-08-04T20:05:44+02:00

The option that would be helpful in predicting the wing phenotype of a male offspring from such a cross would be to look at the father's phenotype.

Imprinted genes can simply be defined as genes that are expressed in parent-of-origin specific manner and result from a chemical modification of DNAs. Such genes are differentially expressed depending on which of the two parents they are inherited from. Hence:

maternally-imprintable genes are only expressed when they are inherited from the father.

paternally-imprintable genes are only expressed when inherited from the mother.

Phenotype refers to the physical appearance or expression of a gene. Therefore, if a gene is maternally imprintable, looking at the phenotype of the father would be helpful in predicting the phenotype of the male child in case a cross happens.

Applying the same principle to the butterfly, it will, therefore, be helpful to look at the father's phenotype in order to predict the wing phenotype of a male offspring from a cross.

The correct option is A.

More about imprinted genes can be found here: https://brainly.com/question/7207412