April 08, 2019

Evolution

The theory of evolution suggests that ultimately every living thing can trace its ancestry to a bacterium that lived billions of years ago.

Charles Darwin did not come up with his theory of evolution while at the Galapagos Islands. His ideas came later, after his return from the voyage.

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Today's Random Fact:

Bears, seals, and dogs are closely related carnivores but are on a different branch of the evolutionary tree than cats and hyenas.

Some snakes have hipbones, which shows they once had four legs like lizards, their close cousins.

Inside some whales and dolphins are small bones that show they once had back legs and that their ancestors walked on land. These occasionally reappear as tiny rear flippers.

Bonus Fact:

Darwin did not argue that humans came from monkeys. Rather he wrote only that monkeys, apes, and humans have a common ancestor.

A hobbit-like species of human lived about 18,000 years ago. About the size of a 3-year-old, they lived with pygmy elephants and 10-foot-long lizards.