A look back: The Homologous and Analogous Trait

1. A. The species that share the homologous trait is the platypus and the seagull or "gull".
    B. The homologous trait is webbed feet. For the seagull the webbed feet serve as flippers when swimming giving them a versatile sea-air prowess. The platypus has a very unique set of webbed feet. The male platypus has ankle spurs that produce a cocktail venom, the front webbed feet of the platypus are more significant than the back which are folded up when waling on land. Their webbed feet have claws at the tip that are used to dig its burrow.
   C. the common ancestor of the two species would be tetrapods. Tetrapod is derived from a Greek word that means "four-footed" comprises for four limped vertebrates and their descendants such as; amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
 

2. A. The species that share the analogous trait are the pelican and the seagull.
    B. The analogous trait they share is their beaks. The beak of the pelican is used to scoop up their food/fish from the ocean, and the beak of the seagull is used to dig underground to find earthworms which is their main source of food.
   C. The common ancestor of the two species is the Charadriiformes. It is the earliest common ancestor and are sea birds; birds that have adapted to diving over water and swimming. They often live near water. However this bird usually lived on the ground but were strong flyers and fed on animals in or near water. Using their beak to to crack snail shells and to puncture small animals.

                                                    
                                                                                                                                                             
                                          

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Backup for Natural Selection

     Alfred Russel Wallace had the most influence over Darwin's development of his theory of Natural Selection. Wallace's contribution to the scientific community was his observations of animals and their adaptive 'evolutionary' features. 

"During his exploration on plants and animals of the Amazon, he distinguished that some animals had camouflage to help them hide from predators, and some birds had specially shaped bills to let them crack open nuts and extract nectar from plants. Some plants had clever defenses to help fight attacks by insects. These observations led Wallace to develop a theory about how species of plants and animals gradually change through a process known as evolution or “natural selection”. ~Provided by http://www.phfawcettsweb.org/wallace.htm

    Darwin actually did develop his theory of natural selection with the help of facts from Wallace and his obervations in the Amazon. Wallace noticed plants developed defenses to help fend off insects which led to Wallace's theory that some plants and animals change over time through evolution. The Church believed at the time that the world and its entirety was created by God, not by evolution. Darwin research and theory proved otherwise and the evidence that evolution was not just a theory but an actual process. His book proposed the thought that human beings were just another evolved form of an animal.

"The book was extremely controversial, because the logical extension of Darwin's theory was that homo sapiens was simply another form of animal. It made it seem possible that even people might just have evolved - quite possibly from apes - and destroyed the prevailing orthodoxy on how the world was created. Darwin was vehemently attacked, particularly by the Church."

~Provided by http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/darwin_charles.shtml