Final answer:
Inheritance of eye color in Drosophila, where males inherit their eye color from their mother and females from their father, is an example of X-linked inheritance.
Step-by-step explanation:
When male flies inherit their eye color from their mother, and female flies inherit their eye color from their fathers, this is an example of X-linked inheritance. Eye color in Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the fruit fly, was first identified as an X-linked trait in 1910 by Thomas Hunt Morgan. Male Drosophila are hemizygous for the X chromosome, meaning they have a single copy of the gene for eye color, which they inherit from their mother. Because they have only one allele, the concept of dominance and recessiveness does not apply in the same way it does for females. Females, on the other hand, inherit an X chromosome from each parent, thus they have two alleles for the eye color gene. Therefore, a female fly's eye color could be inherited from the father if the allele from the mother is recessive.