Hannah Cho
Honors Biology
Mr. Jeffery
16 April 2017
Evolution of Koalas Koalas are one of the things that a person would think of when they hear Australia. Most people call them koala “bears” but this is a common misnomer. Koalas are more closely related to kangaroos and wombats than bears. Their scientific name is Phascolarctos cinereus. They have evolved and adapted to their environment for survival. Their lifestyle of eating and sleeping, which people think is amusing, is actually a result of their adaptation to the environment. Koalas have physically evolved in various ways to adapt to the environment. The diet of the koala is one aspect that shows that they have adapted to their environment. The main diet of the koala is eucalyptus
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One example is the unique shape of a koala’s hands.The front paw of a koala looks fairly similar to a human’s hand. However, it has two thumbs and three fingers. Their hind paws are different from the front paws. The second and third digits of their hind paws are fused together and they have one thumb. They have sharp claws on both paws that help them have a good grip on trees. The rough skin on their palms is another factor that assists them when climbing the tree. By taking a closer look at the hands of koalas, one can see another piece of evidence for evolution. The fingerprints of koalas are very similar to those of humans. This is an example of convergent evolution. Scientists believe that both human and koalas have fingerprints because they both need the ability to grasp on objects. Fingerprints give control when grasping something. Although ancestors of koalas and human have branched apart about 70 million years ago, the two species have developed fingerprints for a similar …show more content…
The color of the fur varies depending on the location of the its habitat. Generally, koalas living in the South have fur that is darker than those living in the North. The fur protects the koalas helps maintain its temperature from cold and hot weathers. It also acts as a raincoat and repels water. In cold weathers, the fur acts as a great insulator and protects koalas from losing too much energy (calories) fighting the cold. Furthermore, in hot weathers, the fur protects koalas from losing water in their body. Regarding a koala’s posture and habitat, it has a denser fur on its rump that is consisted with tougher connective tissues. The thick fur acts as a cushion for its bottom when sitting on a tree. The fur of koalas keep their body temperature stable and provides a cushion for its usual posture sitting on a
Koalas have pear shaped bodies that help in balancing and positioning themselves in tree forks. They also have reduced tails and long limbs that help in ...
Mountain gorillas where first discovered by a German captain named Robert Von Beringe on the Sabinyo volcano in 1903. The mountain gorilla is the largest of the gorillas, male gorilla’s weight up to 400lbs, and females weight 215lbs. Their life span is about 40 to 50 years. The mountain gorilla became known on 17 October 1902, and is a subspecies of eastern gorilla. It has long hair, jaws and teeth, and shorter arms, than the eastern lowland gorilla. Adult male gorillas grow silver hair on their back and hips, giving them the name silverback.
Capybaras are herbivores. They enjoy dining on water plants, grasses, grains, fruit, reeds, melons, and squashes. They also are known for loving corn on the cob. To eat these they gnaw and chew with their front teeth, which never stop growing. Their main threat are wildcats such as jaguars. But, they also have many other predators. Anacondas, pumas, eagles, caimans (a form of crocodile) , and ocelots are just a few. Their gentle and slow nature makes them easy prey for these animals. These are some of the predator/ prey relationships capybaras are part of.
The Kermode bear is an interesting bear that’s endangered. It eats a healthy diet of salmon, found from the ocean, and berries ,found from brushes. It can either have a black coat of fur or some bears have white fur. The Kermode bear has many nicknames such as Spirit bear and ghost bear (Shoumatoff). Meanwhile they are rare which means we don’t want them to be exists because they are a unique species and they help the environment by eating salmon as their main source of food they take the “leftovers” and throw them in the grass this fertilizes the soil making it rich (Tweed).
The grizzly bear’s coat was brown. They could camouflage very easily with their surroundings in the wood. There were occasionally mutations in coat color and those bears would die off quicklier not being able to camouflage. Once the Pleistocene ice age came the environment was completely different, it was now artic. The occasional lighter mutations begain to survive easier and better than the darker colored bears because they were able to get closer to the seals without them seeing which meant they could catch them easier. The darker bears had difficulties now in this mostly snowy environment with camouflage. The seals would see them and swim away, because they weren’t eating as well they would die off easier. Over time the number of mutations began to grow. The mutations started reproducing making a lighter color coat in bears. This kept happening until the Polar bear evolved with a transparent coat. Polar bears hair looks white because the air spaces in the hairs scatter light of all colors. When something reflects all of the visible wavelengths of light, we see the color white. The Polar bear’s transparent coat helped them a lot with camouflage which helped them with
* Perhaps the most noticeable and striking characteristics of a polar bear is its color. The fur shafts themselves are not white. The shafts actually lack pigmentation and are transparent which allows them to scatter and reflect light resulting in ideal camouflage in a world of ice and snow.
Natural selection is a key part of nature and determines which animals thrive. Natural selection is the process by which organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive just and produce more offspring. Some examples of animals who adapted to their environment by natural selection are finches and tortoises. In 1831,Charles Darwin set off on a five year voyage. After looking along the coasts of South America, the ship stopped at Galapagos Islands. During his stay on the islands, he observed the finches and tortoises on each island. He noticed that the finches and tort...
Hey, I didn’t see you there, how are you?I'm just wondering whether or not a big ol' grizzly bear is going to come charging at me at any point in my life, but seeing as grizzly bears are endangered that probably won't happen. In the past, there were thought to be around 50,000 grizzly bears in North America, nowadays they are growing sparse there are estimated to be only around 1800, now not even a 20th of the population in the past. Most of these grizzlies are located in Yellowstone National Park and Alaska, but they can also be found in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and Montana. Some are thought to be in Washington.
to discuss changes in habitat and environmental variability, nature of diet and dietary changes, and nature of and reliance on fallback foods of extinct great apes; and
Chapter two consists of Darwin continuing his studies. He talks about variation in the natural world compared to the domesticated species. He defines species variation and says that every naturalist has a different idea of the definition. He explains to the reader that linking other species together by characteristics of variation is challenging because some are so similar but vary in other ways. Environmental conditions could be effecting the variation. Climate, temperature, the separation of the animals could transform them. The species changes over time and have chi...
The gorillas live mainly in coastal West Africa in the Congo, Zaire, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Gorillas live in the rain forest. They usually live on the ground but build nest in trees to sleep in. Gorilla troops keep a 15-20 square mile range which often overlaps the range of other troops. There are three different kinds of gorillas. The eastern lowland gorilla the western lowland and the mountain gorilla. They are herbivores and eat only wild celery, roots, tree bark pulp, fruit, stems of many plants and bamboo shoots. They spend nearly half their day eating.
Fossils are commonly thought to be the “evidence for evolution” but there is so much more. Use examples to illustrate one of these other lines of evidence, being explicit in how it relates to the tree-like branching pattern of evolution. The molecular record is another line of evidence for evolution. Molecular records show a stronger evidence for evolution by comparing the DNA of different species. Even though fossils that are similar gives a physical relation to another, species DNA show more similarities. For example humans and chimpanzees are similar in appearance, structure but are more closely related by DNA. Humans are Primates right along with the great apes, one of the main individuals of the primate evolutionary tree. The Smithsonian
Bears live in forests, mountains, deserts and grassy areas. They have fur-covered bodies, short legs and a round head with a long snout. In fact bears have two layers of fur. A short layer of fur keeps the bear warm and a long layer keeps water (2 ) ……… from the skin and short fur.
The small revision and modifications represent the microevolutionary changes and can lead to new species over time. The immense vast and varied diversity of life on Earth, from birds to butterflies, from apes to humans these baffled and bewildered Darwin. Each organism and species alluringly and appealingly acclimatized and habituated to the environment around the them. Prior to Darwin, humans, were not looked upon as a part if the World. Though, humans resembled primates, like chimpanzee and orangutan and had a lot of similarities with the primates, only few of the Naturalists, grouped humans as
Without evolution, and the constant ever changing environment, the complexity of living organisms would not be as it is. Evolution is defined as a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations (8).Scientists believe in the theory of evolution. This belief is based on scientific evidence that corroborates the theory of evolution. In Figure 1 the pictures of the skulls depict the sequence of the evolution of Homo-sapiens. As the figure shows, man has evolved from our common ancestor that is shared by homo-sapiens. The change of diet of homo-sapiens over time has thought to contribute to the change in jaw structure and overall skull shape.