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The length of the mouse tails are determined by their genes. If a mouse has a 6cm tail, then cutting the tail off will not affect the mouse's genes, you've only modified the mouse on a cosmetic level, not a genetic one. That mouse's genes still contain the 'blueprints' for that 6cm tail, and it is these it will pass on to offspring.

It doesn't matter how many generations you do it for, you cannot change their genetic makeup like this.

What you need to do is use artificial selection. Because of how genes work, there is variation amongst a species. These traits are what are passed on to offspring. You could take the mice with the shortest tails, and breed them together, then from their offspring, again breed the shortest tails together, and disallow the longer tailed ones from breeding. Eventually the average tail length of that group will become smaller, as more mice are passing on 'small tail' genes.

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15y ago

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