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Evidence of Evolution

This document provides instructions for an activity on evidence of evolution. Students are asked to examine diagrams of homologous and analogous structures in different animals to observe similarities and differences that suggest common ancestry or shared functions. They also analyze diagrams of vestigial structures in related cavefish and minnows. Students then consider physical similarities in embryos of different organisms and compare amino acid sequences in cytochrome c proteins of various animals to human. The aim is for students to gather multiple lines of evidence from morphology, embryology and molecular biology to support the theory of evolution.

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Jhona Tupaz
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77 views

Evidence of Evolution

This document provides instructions for an activity on evidence of evolution. Students are asked to examine diagrams of homologous and analogous structures in different animals to observe similarities and differences that suggest common ancestry or shared functions. They also analyze diagrams of vestigial structures in related cavefish and minnows. Students then consider physical similarities in embryos of different organisms and compare amino acid sequences in cytochrome c proteins of various animals to human. The aim is for students to gather multiple lines of evidence from morphology, embryology and molecular biology to support the theory of evolution.

Uploaded by

Jhona Tupaz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Name__________________________________________ Date__________

Grade and Section: _____________________________________________


ACTIVITY: Evidence Of Evolution
PROCEDURES AND OBSERVATIONS:
PART I. HOMOLOGOUS STRUCTURES (definition): _______________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
1. Carefully examine the drawings of the bones shown in Figure 1. Look for
similarities among the various animals.
a. Color each part of the human arm a different color. (Note: All bones of the wrist
should be a single color; all the bones of the hand should be a different single
color, etc.) Then color the corresponding bone in each of the other animals the
same color as the human bone.
b. Describe the function of each structure below:

c. Are the bones arranged in a similar way in each animal? ________________________


PART II. ANALOGOUS STRUCTURES (definition):
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Examine the butterfly wing and the bird wing shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.
a. What function do these structures share? ____________________________
b. How are these structures different? _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
c. Do birds and insects share any structural (elements inside the wing) similarities
that would suggest they are closely related taxonomically?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

PART III. VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES (definition):______________________________________________________________


___________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. The cavefish and minnow shown in Figure 3 are related, but the cavefish is blind.

a. Explain why eyesight is not an important adaptation to life in a cave.


___________________________________________________________________________________________________
b. What do you think has become the most important adaptation of the cave fish (think about senses)? (explain
your answer)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
c. What about the internal structure of the cavefish and minnow suggest common ancestry?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Read the list of human vestigial structures shown in Table 1.
c. Suggest a possible function for each structure and explain why it became vestigial.Record your answers in the
table.

PART IV EMBROYOLOGY: Organisms that are closely related may also have physical similarities before they are even born!
Take a look at the six different embryos below. Hypothesize which embryo is from each of the following organisms:

These are older, more developed embryos from the same organisms.

Part V. Molecular Biology: Cytochrome c is a protein found in mitochondria. It is used in the study of evolutionary
relationships because most animals have this protein. Cytochrome c is made of 104 amino acids joined together.
Below is a list of the amino acids in part of a cytochrome protein molecule for 9 different animals. Any sequences exactly
the same for all animals have been skipped. For each non-human animal, take a highlighter and mark any amino acids
that are different than the human sequence. When you finish, record how many differences you found in the table on the
next page.

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