help. If a cat has 38 chromodomes, how many are int eh folling cells, hair, claw, sperm, eggs ,and tongue?

Answer 1

The cat will have 38 in all the somatic (normal) cells and half of that (19) in the sex cells.

This is because a cat has two sets of genetic information; this is known as a diploid arrangement. so there are 19 pairs of chromosomes (known as homologus pairs) that code for essentially the same thing, just sometimes in different ways.

When the cell divides normally (mitosis), all of the chromosomes are replicated, creating two new diploid cells

When sex cells are divided, only one set of genetic information is allocated to each new cell, so the daughter cells are known as haploid. So each cell gets only one chromosome from eact set of paired chromosomes, so the humber of chromosomes in the resulting cell is half of the original.

So you just divide 18 by two for the sex cells.

That's probably the most basic concept of meiosis. if you're in school, you shouldn't be asking such "easy" questions on this website, or you won't actually learn them. I can guarantee that this will be on any test you take for this class, so you might want to sit down with your book and make sure you understand it. What I gave you is merely an overview and might not be enough information if you're in a high school biology class.

best,
meg