CBSE Class 10 Science 2018 · Paper 31/1/C · Question 10

Acquired traits are characteristics that an organism develops during its own lifetime, because of its environment, the use or disuse of its organs, training or accident; for example, the low weight of a beetle that has been starved, muscles built up by exercise, or a tail cut off by surgery. They are generally not inherited because they are changes in the non-reproductive (body) tissues only. They do not change the DNA of the germ cells (the reproductive cells), and only the DNA of the germ cells is copied into the gametes and passed on to the next generation. For example, if the tails of mice are cut off in every generation, their offspring are still born with tails, because the cut does not change the genes of the germ cells.