Curly Wing Inheritance in Drosophilia

How many F2 flies have curly wings?

In a cross between true-breeding curly-and straight winged parental flies, there are 480 flies in the F2 generation.

Answer:

In a cross between true-breeding curly-winged and straight-winged flies, the F2 generation would have 1/4 of the flies with curly wings.

Curly wing inheritance in Drosophilia is an interesting genetic phenomenon. In this case, curly wing is a recessive trait compared to straight wing. When true-breeding curly-winged flies are crossed with true-breeding straight-winged flies, the resulting F2 generation will show a specific pattern.

The fact that there are 480 flies in the F2 generation is crucial to determining the number of flies with curly wings. Given that curly wing is a recessive trait, it means that for a fly to have curly wings, it must inherit two copies of the curly wing gene (cc).

From the information provided, we can infer that 1/4 of the F2 flies would have curly wings. This is because in the cross between the parental flies, the F1 generation would be heterozygous curly-winged (Cc). When these F1 flies are crossed with each other, the genotypic ratio of the F2 generation would be 1 CC : 2 Cc : 1 cc. Among these ratios, the flies with curly wings (cc) represent the 1/4.

Therefore, based on the data given and the genetic principles involved, the number of F2 flies with curly wings would be 480 flies multiplied by 1/4, which equals 120 flies.