Thread: Elven genetics
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Old 03-07-2004, 05:34 PM   #1
Elianna
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Ad finem itineris
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Tolkien Elven genetics

I've been wondering about nick-pickies of elven genetics. My main questions are these:

1) Is it possible that Arwen have the midnight hair of the books?
I know Elrond had midnight hair, but what about Celebrían? Her mom was blonde w/ silver, and her dad had silver hair. Let's first assume that silver hair isn't a sign of age w/ elves, but a color of hair you can be born with.
This would make Celebrían's hair very lightly colored. I know that dark hair is dominate over light hair, but hair is a multipy allele trait. This means that the genes will mix together making a shade of color, not just one or the other. So if Arwen's dad was dark haired, and her mom was light haired, then Arwen would have brown hair, not midnight black.

2) Elves have gestational periods of almost exactly one year, but humans' gestational period is around 9 months (if all goes well). So how long did Arwen carry Eldarion?

3) And finally: We call ours teens (because we come of age at 18 or 21), Hobbits call theirs tweens (because they come of age at 33), what about elves? They don't come of age until 50. They would be in about their 30's and 40's at adolesence.

Got any ideas?
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