Shubin shows how fin structures of fish like Tiktaalik mark the beginning of the evolution into the mammalian paw and opposable thumb structures in the hands of today’s primates. The significance behind Tiktaalik is how it proved to be the missing link which greatly shows the transition from fish who swim, to four-legged vertebrates. Neil also states that all creatures in the world are built similarly to one another. Creatures such as whales, birds, and humans have single arm bones that each lead to two others, that connect to fingers or our toes. In us humans, this shows up in the humorous, and they go through the radius and ulna into our wrist bones and fingers.
First he explains that Apes in Africa broke into several populations: Gorillas, Chimps, and then us Humans. The first human ancestor to spread beyond Africa was the Homo erectus. It was found with fossils discovered in the Java Islands in Southeast Asia (known as the Java man). Half a million years ago Homo erectus skeletons became enlarged, rounder, and less angular. Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens and had dramatically smaller brains than us.
Summary of “Why Evolution is true” By: Jerry A. Coyne What is evolution; chapter I explains Darwin’s theory of evolution, which applies to all species, new species are descended from earlier forms. This means that organisms with similar characteristics are likely to have shared a common ancestor sometime in the past. The more traits shared by organisms, the closer their evolutionary relationship. This principle of “common descent” explains why anthropologists are interested in studying nonhuman animals, particularly primates (the mammalian order that includes monkeys, apes, and humans), with whom humans share the closest common ancestor. Some of our important human characteristics, such as a spinal cord encased in a bony vertebral column, and the concentration of nerve cells in a brain, are part of our vertebrate heritage, established in a common ancestor over 600 million years ago.
In the visit to the American Musem of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origin, I’ve known that the DNA is the essential molecules that’s the instruction manual for building each specie, and was amazed by the fact that human and the chimpanzee are 98.8 percent alike. Nowaday we are so much different from them because we were from the same common ancester 6 to 7 million years ago, but the DNA changed from generation to generation.
3. The other famous was paleoanthropologists Tim White; Johanson and White argue that Afar specimens and Mary Leakey’s Laetoli fossils are identical in form and belong to the same species. 4. "Lucy" it is placed into in to the taxonomic group called hominid (Australopithecus afarensis), which includes all primates including chimpanzees, orangutans & gorillas. 5.
Replacement Model vs. Multiregional Model Approximately 195,000 to 300,000 years ago anatomically modern humans evolved from premoderns, we know this to be true but what happened to the premoderns? We know out of Africa anatomically modern humans left Africa to graze and hunt other places. But what happened to those people who they came in contact with? Why did one species push another to edge of extinction? Paleoanthropologists as well as anthropologist have their own individual view of the evolution of the anatomically modern human being.
Like all other species apes are notorious for grooming another and spend a lot of time grooming one another. Having no tails seem to be a disadvantage, but having longer arms allows them to knuckle walk and swing from tree to with ease. Some apes featured in the film were Chimpanzees and Bonobo apes. Within all those species similarities and differences are common throughout species. No matter how different primates look they all share some characteristics that connect us together by some sort.
It is the most primitive, and it includes true lemurs, galagos and lorises. This group of primates rely commonly on an ancestral trait known as olfaction, sense of smell. There ability to smell comes from a moist, fleshy pad, or rhinarium at the end of their nose along with a long snout. Uncommon in other primates, prosimians routinely mark their territory with scent (jurmain,208). A grooming claw on the second digit of their feet , and a dental tooth comb formed by forward projecting lower incisors and canies are some of their distinctive characteristics.
My favorite part about them is how they sunbath in a pose as if they were worshiping something. The conditions of Madagascar that the lemur had to adapt to forced them to become terrestrial creatures showing more evidence that over time terrestrial primates had to get used to scoping for predators as well as picking food from trees. The Guenon is another example from this era and by far is my favorite lemuroid due to the wise man beard. This type of lemur is found in varies parts of Africa (PIN). They are fair in size with longer legs, quite
Essay # 2 There is only a two percent difference in DNA between humans and chimpanzee's. Chimps also known as Haplorhines and are one of the best known primates today. There are striking similarities between humans and chimps in the anatomy and wiring of the brain and nervous system. (Diamond 2008 a: 46) One of the most distinct similarities are the prehensility which is our grasping ability. Both the chimpanzees and human have opposable thumbs, which of course started out as a mutation but ended up being very positive for anyone who has it.