Question

1. mr. krabbs and his wife recently had a lil’ krabby, but it has not been a happy occasion for them. mrs. krabbs has been upset since she first saw her new baby who had short eyeballs. she claims that the hospital goofed and mixed up her baby with someone else’s baby. mr. krabbs is homozygous for his tall eyeballs, while his wife is heterozygous for her tall eyeballs. some members of her family have short eyes, which is the recessive trait. create a punnett square using t for the dominant gene and t for the recessive one.

a. list the possible genotypes and phenotypes for their children.
b. did the hospital make a mistake? explain your answer.

Explanation:

Step1: Identify parental genotypes

Mr. Krabbss: $TT$; Mrs. Krabbs: $Tt$

Step2: Set up Punnett Square

	$T$	$T$
$t$	$Tt$	$Tt$

Step3: List genotype/phenotype ratios

Genotypes: $TT$ (50%), $Tt$ (50%)
Phenotypes: Tall eyeballs (100%)

Step4: Evaluate hospital mix-up claim

All offspring have dominant trait.

Answer:

A. Possible Genotypes: $TT$ (50% probability), $Tt$ (50% probability)
Possible Phenotypes: 100% tall eyeballs (no short eyeball offspring possible)
B. Yes, the hospital made a mistake. Mr. Krabbss is homozygous dominant ($TT$) for tall eyeballs, so every child will inherit at least one dominant $T$ allele, resulting in tall eyeballs. A baby with short eyeballs (recessive $tt$) cannot be their biological child.