Fossil Record

Evidence for Evolution Activity

Fossil Record

The most ancient common ancestor, or “stem” species, from which later on in time hominids originated was the Australopithecus afarensis species, which were Lucy and other members of her species. They lived somewhere between 3.9 and 3.0 million years ago.

Five species that are from the Homo genus are Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens.

One extinction that occurred was at end Permian, at the end of the Paleozoic era which wiped out about 90% of all species which may be caused by volcanism, meteor, global warming, sea-level changes, glaciation, or ocean chemistry changes. Another extinction that occurred was at end Cretaceous, at the

As the fossil chordates, horses evolved the spine evolved from an arc to a straight spine, the neck became more upright like a modern horse, and the structure of the front legs became more straight rather than curved which makes the horse have a better posture and stand up straight with a straight spine. There are adaptive values of various structural changes that have occurred through horse evolution like the front and back legs became more straight to make it run more efficiently. Also the spine became more straight rather than an arc to make the horse be more stable and balanced so the horse can run efficiently. The significance of the Cambrian explosion was that most of the major animals were formed during the Cambrian Period and have been evolving since

Also, between species that inhabit similar environments is persuasive evidence of the evolutionary origin of biodiversity. The world’s oceans have never been frozen from one north to the south, polar bears could have reached the Antarctic but they are not strong enough to swim there, even though they are strong swimmers. Also there are would be no penguins in the Arctic because penguins are a key prey for polar bears which, if there were in the Arctic, kill all of the penguins in the