No, in this context "perceive" has little to do with the meaning of "inherit".
I believe the writer is referring to humans gathering data about evolutionary history, they are perceiving (noticing, seeing, smelling, hearing - "receiving" only in the sense that we are gaining information about the outside world) the similarities which are inherited by the organism.
To inherit is to gain something passed down from someone else, usually a parent. Specifically traits like body structure or objects like houses and money.
We perceive (notice) the inherited (passed down) traits.