1 / 13

Understanding the Evidence for Evolution: Vestigial and Homologous Structures

This piece explores key evidence supporting the theory of evolution, focusing on vestigial organs, homologous structures, and analogous structures. Vestigial organs serve no useful function and are remnants of evolutionary history, while homologous structures share a common embryonic origin but differ in form and function among species. The article also delves into analogous structures, which, despite arising in unrelated species, perform similar functions. Other supportive evidence includes biochemical DNA analysis, fossil records, geographic distribution of species, and embryological similarities, all illuminating the evolutionary process.

oren
Download Presentation

Understanding the Evidence for Evolution: Vestigial and Homologous Structures

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Evidence for Evolution

  2. Evidence • Let’s examine a few categories that support the process of evolution

  3. Vestigial Organ • An organ that serves no useful function in an organism • AKA “evolutionary leftovers”

  4. Vestigial Organ

  5. Vestigial Organ

  6. Homologous Structure • Structures that have different mature forms in different organism but develop from the same embryonic tissues • In other words, they look different in adults but looked the same in embryos

  7. Homologous Structure • Look back at the STATION #2 separate sheet

  8. Analogous Structure • Similar structures found in dissimilar organisms • In other words, the organisms are not closely related, the structures evolved separately, but they turned out to look similar and serve a similar function

  9. Analagous Structure • Let’s look at an example…

  10. Biochemical • Analyzing DNA similarities between living and extinct organisms • Most reliable!!!

  11. Fossil Record • Analyzing the fossil record to observe how species have changes from their extinct ancestors

  12. Geographic Distribution • Species in a confined geographic area can evolve from a single ancestor • Species in different but similar locations can evolve similarly

  13. Embryology • Studying the similarities between different species as embryos • In other words, the similarities of development leads to the formation of homologous structures

More Related