Self Assessment Answer # 6 for Lesson 3 by Dr Jamie Love 2002 - 2005

Dolly is a clone because she was produced entirely by mitosis! Her very first cell was NOT made by the fusion of a male and female cell. Those cells require meiosis to be created.
Instead, Dolly has the exact same genetic materials as her genetic "mother". She has no "identical twin sister sheep" but she could have one and still might one day. Just because she has no sister clone that does not make her a "nonclone". Dolly's "mom", who was actually long dead when Dolly was created, is the first mammal to reproduce by mitosis! Dolly's mom's somatic cells, not gametes, provided the nucleus that created Dolly.

By the way, you can read about the Cloning of Dolly at Science Explained. This is "extra reading" and it is not required for our Genetics course. Indeed, the technical side of cloning has very little to do with genetics - it's mostly about embryology and cell biology!

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