how did you get whites from that pairing?? i don’t understand genetics plz help

mad-hare:

lol that’s okay! The whites are albinos, so they have two copies of an otherwise recessive gene. I was surprised too because we got none the first litter and neither of the parents have a white ancestor minus one great grandparent.

So since both parents carried a copy of the gene (50% chance to inherit) which needs two copies it gives a kit a 25% chance of being born albino..

Here we see the convergence of genetics and statistics! You can predict how things will go, but sometimes statistics goes “ha, nah, have a batch of 4 kits where 3 display a trait that’s a ¼ chance”.

pervocracy:

Fun statistical fact: Cows are about 300 times more likely to kill you than coyotes.

Minor sidenote to statistical fact: If it was common for people to keep several hundred coyotes on their property and routinely chase them into a corral and handle them, this statistic would be different.