Telegony (inheritance)

Telegony is a theory of heredity holding that offspring can inherit the characteristics of a previous mate of the female parent; thus the child of a woman might partake of traits of a previous sexual partner. The theory used to be accepted as a fact by the Ancient Greeks, but experiments in the late 19th century on several species failed to provide evidence that offspring would inherit any characteristics from their mother's previous mates. Although there is no strong scientific evidence supporting it, the theory of telegony has been revisited by some in light of emerging interest in non-genetic mechanisms of inheritance.