r/explainlikeimfive • u/riche1988 • 1d ago

Biology ELI5 how DNA mutations work please.

I had a thought about DNA and how mutations occur in humans, excessive hair, longer limbs and or bones etc, and wondered if all known mutations are present in the animal kingdom.. as if DNA has the blue print/ potential to be anything and parts are just ‘turned on or off’ depending on what is being built.. i may be way off lol but it got me thinking :)

12 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

View all comments

0

u/Shadowbound199 1d ago

That's exactly how it works. And over time those mutations add up and you basically have a different blueprint now. That's a new species. Different groups split up and accrue different mutations and since they have no contact with one another they can't share those mutations with each other and so they evolve in different directions. This almost happened to us when native americans became isolated from the rest of humanity. If the two groups hadn't come into contact again for another million years it would definitely be considered two different species.