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Do you have a royal jaw?
Many members of the European royal families in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries inherited the 'Hapsburg lip', a lower jaw and lip that jutted out. Several artists of the time captured this royal family feature. The Hapsburg lip could be passed on to a child even if only one parent had it. So the effect of a gene for a jutting-out jaw masked the gene for a jaw that didn't jut out.Enlarge
Spanish King Charles V (1550-58) had the characteristic family jaw.
How was the Hapsburg lip inherited?
The Hapsburg lip was a trait with a dominant pattern of inheritance. This means that if a child inherited a gene for a jutting-out jaw from one parent, they would have a jutting-out jaw - even if they inherited a gene for a non-jutting-out jaw from the other parent.
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Inheritance of the Hapsburg lip.
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