Friday, February 22, 2013

Homologous and Analogous


1. The two species that has homologous traits are the dolphin and the bat, a dolphin's fin and the wing of a bat, are homologous organs that retain the same basic structure of the original ancestral species. The dolphin's fin, this is designed to swim and be almost always in contact with water, but the wing of a bat has the same structure but different function like fly and to make it more easy for them to succeed finding food. Homologous divergent evolution occurs, referring progressive adaptation of the same organ at different functions, such as running, climbing, swimming and flying.



2. A good example of analogous is the functional similarities between the wings of insects and birds, although both structures serve the same purpose, fly, allowing organs such activity are in origin and structure very different from one another, therefore the analogy may serve in this case to determine evolutionary convergences, but in no way can establish descent between species in biological evolution. These similarities, analogies calls are rather superficial and due to these organisms are subject to the same restrictions functional or adaptive, and is not due to having a recent common ancestor.


3 comments:

  1. In general, good work on the homologous trait. Your pairing is correct, and you do well to explain the difference in function, but can you describe with greater depth how this results in different structure? How does this different function affect the skeletal structure of the two limbs?

    Can you identify the general common ancestor of the bat and the dolphin to confirm the common origin?

    Good analogous traits and good descriptions. Can you try to identify the common ancestor? How do we know that these traits arose independently from each other?

    Good images.

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  2. This is similar to the homologous trait I chose, which was the forearm; I compared bats and humans. I like this comparison.
    Your analogous comparison was great. Insects and birds. Reading your entry made me think about how vast an area analogous traits are. Great job.

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  3. I too did a similar comparison, but I picked to do mine with the human hand and the fin of a whale. I found the insect to bug comparison very interesting, definitely made me check twice at what you were comparing, well done.

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