Activity : Topic 5(a)
MODELING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ANIMAL TAXA
To understand trees, you’d need to understand something called common ancestry. For example, you’velikely known or heard that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans. This means that if yougo back far enough, you’d find a population of animals that had some traits in common with just humans, some traits in common with just chimps, and probably a lot of traits in common with both humans andchimps.
This population of animals is the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. If one could followthis population far back through time, at some point something would have taken place that would separatethe population into two different groups. Over time, one of these groups would become more chimp-like, whereas the other group would become more human-like.
It turns out that you can do this, go back in time to find a common ancestor, with any two taxa(organisms, or group of organisms, singular: taxon) on the planet. That’s because all life on Earth isrelated by common ancestry.
In this activity, you will use evidence to determine patterns of relatedness among different animal groups.
Grading method: Highest grade