Period 7 Morphology

Biological diversity reflects unbroken descent from common ancestors. "The number of shared characteristics between any one species and another indicates how recently those two species have diverged from a shared lineage" (National Geographic).

Another form of morphological evidence are vestigial characteristics. They show that "the living world is full of small, tolerable imperfections" (National Geographic).

"Morphology continues to be of importance in taxonomy because morphological features characteristic of a particular species are used to identify it. As biologists have begun to devote more attention to ecology, the identification of plant and animal species present in an area and perhaps changing in numbers in response to environmental changes has become increasingly significant" (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9110577/morphology#498017.hook).

Morphology is defined as the science concerned with the configuration or the structure of animals and plants.(WebMD).

A way to find more information about Morphology scientists use Vestigial Structures because, "Vestigial structures stand as remnants of the evolutionary history of a lineage."(National Geographic).

Human structures are not jsut found in humans, they are also found in other organisms, "the five digit structure of the vertebrate hand appears not just in humans and apes and raccoons and bears, but also, variously modified in cats, bats, lizards, and turtles."(National Geographic).

The five digit skeletal structure of the vertevrate hand appears not just in humans and apes and raccoons and bears but also, variously modified, in cats and bats and porpoises and lizards and turtles. The paired bones of our lower lef the tibia and the fibula are also represented by homolohous bones in other mammmals and in reptiles, and even in long-extinct bird reptile Archaeopteryx. (National Geographic)

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