| A | B |
|---|
| Adaptation | Characteristics or traits that help an organism survive in its environment and reproduce |
| Evolution | gradual change in a species over time |
| Natural Selection | the process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce than other members of the same species |
| Species | group of similar organisms whose members can mate with one another and reproduce fertile offspring |
| Charles Darwin | a naturalist who discovered the many differences and similarities of species and came up with the theory of evolution |
| variation | any difference between individuals of the same species |
| HMS Beagle | a British naval ship that set sail in 1831 frome England in a 5 year trip around the world (Darwin was on it) |
| Scientific Theory | a well tested concept that explains a wide range of observations |
| Continental Drift | the very slow motion of the continents |
| Extinct | a species that has no living members |
| New Species | occurs when some members of a species become isolated or cut off from the rest of the species. If they are separated long enough, they will form new traits |
| Common ancestor | an ancestor that may have been related to different species in the distant past |
| fossils | the preserved remains or traces of an organism that lived in the past |
| sedimentary rock | a type of rock that forms when particles from other rocks or the remains of plants or animals build up, over millions of years and form hardened layers |
| evolutionary relationship | relationship among organisms of different species. Scientists compare these three things: body structure, development before birth, and DNA sequence- to determine if they are related |
| Darwin's finches | The birds Darwin studies to come up with the theory of evolution |
| evolutionary branching tree | a tree diagram that shows how scientist think that different groups of organisms are related |
| mimicry | when animals act like they posess certain adaptaions when they do not not have them |
| camoflauge | a common animal defense that allows it to hide from predators |
| early development | scientist also make inferences about evolutionary relationships by comparing the early development of different organisms |
| homolougous | similar structures that related species have inherited from common ancestors |
| similar DNA | the species inherited many of the same genes from common ancestors |
| mutation | an insertion, deletion, or substitution of a genetic sequence |
| genetic diversity | a variation of inheritable characteristics found in a population of the same species |
