A man who had purple ears came to the attention of a human geneticist. The human geneticist did a pedigree analysis and made the following observations:
In this family, purple ears proved to be an inherited trait due to a single genetic locus. The man's mother and one sister also had purple ears, but his father, his brother, and two other sisters had normal ears. The man and his normal-eared wife had seven children, including four boys and three girls. Two boys and two girls had purple ears. The purple-ear trait is most probably
a. autosomal, dominant
b. autosomal, recessive
c. sex-linked, dominant
d. sex-linked, recessive
e. cannot be determined from this information
Answer: A