Mitosis and Meiosis Lab
Instructions: Answer the questions below, based on Experiments 1 – 3.
1. Why is it appropriate to view a whitefish cell from a blastula in early embryonic
development instead of a cell from adult tissue?
2. Why must you observe the onion root tip instead of the main body of the onion?
3. Which distinguishing features allow you to identify cells in interphase?
4. Which distinguishing features allow you to identify cells in prophase?
5. Which distinguishing features allow you to identify cells in metaphase?
6. Which distinguishing features allow you to identify cells in anaphase?
7. Which distinguishing features allow you to identify cells in telophase?
8. Which stage of the cell cycle is the hardest to identify?
9. In which phase of the cell cycle do onion cells spend the most time? In which
phase of the cell cycle do onion cells spend the least time?
10. How does meiosis differ from mitosis?
11. How does the cell cycle differ between a plant cell (onion) and mitosis and an
animal cell (fish)?
12. Imagine you are comparing a microscope slide of normal human cells to a slide
of cancerous human cells. What differences in the numbers of cells in each
phase of the cell cycle would you observe between the two slides?