Population of genetically identical cells or organisms that originated from a single cell or organism by nonsexual methods.
Cloning is fundamental to most living things, since the body cells of plants and animals are clones that come ultimately from a single fertilized egg. More narrowly, the term refers to an individual organism grown from a single body cell of its parent that is genetically identical to the parent. Cloning has been commonplace in horticulture since ancient times; many varieties of plants are cloned simply by obtaining DNA from an adult sheep. The practical applications of cloning are economically promising but philosophically unsettling.