EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION

During and since Darwin’s time, people have been looking for and studying evidence in nature that
teaches them more about evolution. Some types of evidence, such as fossils and similarities
between related living organisms, were used by Darwin to develop his theory of natural selection,
and are still used today. Others, such as DNA testing, were not available in Darwin’s time, but are
used by scientists today to learn more about evolution.

Five types of evidence for evolution are discussed in this section: ancient organism remains, fossil
layers, similarities among organisms alive today, similarities in DNA, and similarities of embryos.
Another important type of evidence that Darwin studied and that is still studied and used today is
artificial selection, or breeding.

Ancient Organism Remains

Fossil Layers

Similarities Among Living Organisms

Similarities of Embryos

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ANCIENT ORGANISM REMAINS

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Top: A paleontologist removes fossils from rock. Center: Minerals have replaced the plant matter to
form this petrified wood. Bottom: This insect became trapped in tree sap, which then hardened into
amber. [2]

Darwin found many types of remains of ancient organisms. In addition to fossil layers, he saw other
fossils, bones, insects in amber (hardened tree sap), and petrified wood. Another type of preserved
organism, which Darwin did not find, is animals such as mammoths frozen and preserved in ice.

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This frozen baby wooly mammoth probably lived 22,000 years ago. [2]

During his journey, Darwin found the bones of an extinct giant sloth, Megatherium. He realized that
animals can become extinct and that life is not unchanging, and he also saw similarities between
extinct and living animals. Darwin wondered how they could be related.

Darwin and scientists today have discovered that the ancient organisms whose remains they find
look like organisms alive today because they are the living organisms’ ancestors or evolved from a
common ancestor. For example, megatherium was probably an ancient ancestor of tree sloths that
exist today.

Today, fossils are still being studied to find out more about life in the past and its relation to life in
the present. They provide valuable information about evolution and how life formed. Unlike in
Darwin’s time, now scientists can date these fossils and remains to get a more exact picture of when
different organisms evolved. We are still learning new things from a valuable source that is literally
millions of years old.

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FOSSIL LAYERS

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Layers of sedimentary rock.

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Trilobite.jpg

Above: A sandstone fossil of a trilobite, which probably lived 500 to 600 million years ago. Below: A
fossil of an ancient sea-lily, which probably lived 90 million years ago. [2]

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Lily.jpg

Fossil layers are fossils that formed in sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock is rock that is formed in
layers by the depositing and pressing of sediments on top of each other. Sediments are any loose
material that gets broken away and carried: pieces of rocks, pebbles, sand, clay, silt, boulders, dead
organisms, animals, plants, shells, insects . . . . When sediments move and settle somewhere, they
are being deposited. When, over a long time, layers and layers of sediments get deposited on top of
each other, the weight of the top layers presses down on the bottom layers, forming them into rock
called sedimentary rock. The oldest layers are on the bottom, and the youngest layers are on the
top. Because sediments sometimes include once-living organisms, sedimentary rock often contains a
lot of fossils. Fossils are once-living organisms that have been turned into rock, in which the shape or
form of the organism can still be seen.

Once thing that Darwin noticed on his travels, and that people continue to notice today, is that
fossils in the bottom layers are very different from the organisms alive today; Darwin didn’t even
recognize them. As one looks farther up, at younger and younger rock layers, the fossilized plants
and animals become more and more familiar until they are a lot like organisms that are around now.
The organisms also tend to become more and more complex.

From this, Darwin concluded that organisms have not remained the same since earth’s beginning,
and that they have changed a lot, gradually becoming more and more complex. He also realized that
as new species arise, other ones become extinct.

People look at fossils to discover which life forms evolved first and which later on. Today scientists
also have ways of dating the rocks, figuring out about how long ago each layer was deposited. This
also helps us piece together the time scale of evolution and when certain events occurred.

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SIMILARITIES AMONG LIVING ORGANISMS

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The sea gull and the pelican are very similar in appearance, behavior and DNA. The differences, such
as beak shape and size, show that each bird adapted to fit its own environment.

One type of evidence for evolution (evidence that organisms are related, descended from a few
common ancestors, and change to adapt to their environments) is that organisms are similar to each
other, but not exactly the same. Similar organisms have differences that help them adapt to their
environments.

Many organisms have similar body plans. Horses’, donkeys’, and zebras’ bodies are set up in pretty
much the same way, because they are descended from a common ancestor. As organisms adapt and
evolve, not everything about them changes. The differences, such as the zebra’s stripes, show that
each species adapted to its own environment after branching off from the common ancestor.

The bodies of deer, moose, zebras, and horses are very similar, and these animals are very closely
related. One major difference is that deer and moose have antlers and zebras and horses don’t. Why
is this? Deer and moose live alone or in small groups, while zebras and horses live in large herds.
Living in a herd provides its own protection from enemies: it is easier to attack an individual than a
huge herd. Therefore, herd-living animals do not need the antlers that their loner relatives need for
protection. In addition, running or grazing with large antlers is hard to do in a herd, where it is easy
to accidentally stab one’s neighbor.

All insects have heads, abdomens, and thoraxes, antennae, six legs, and wings. However, each
species is different, and while all insects have wings, some have small, useless wings, because their
environments did not force them to evolve useful wings, or because their wings became harmful to
survival.

All birds have feathers, beaks, and wings, but are different because they had to adapt to different
environments, such as the webbed feet of water birds but not of land birds. On a more distant level,
fish and zebras both have eyes, frogs and baboons both have spines. Generally, the longer ago the
last common ancestor lived, the less the organisms have in common. Turtles and tortoises share a
common ancestor, but began evolving separately a long time ago. The common ancestor of box and
painted turtles lived more recently, so the box turtle has more in common with the painted turtle
than it does with the tortoise. How similar two organisms are can help people figure out how closely
they are related.

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Family snapshot – chimps and humans are very closely related.

Similarities are often easy to see when one looks at two organisms that evolved from a common
ancestor, and until recently, looking at physical features and behavior was the only way to
determine how closely related two organisms are. However, now scientists can also analyze DNA to
discover how closely organisms are related. Every living creature has DNA, which has a lot of
inherited information about how the body builds itself. Scientists can compare the DNA of two
organisms; the more similar the DNA, the more closely related the organisms. This method can also
help when looks are deceptive. One example of looks being deceptive is: The bat and the crow both
have wings, and the squirrel does not. From this, one may think that bats and crows are more closely
related than bats and squirrels, while the opposite is indeed the case.

DNA testing is a tool that Darwin never had, but it has helped scientists after him to learn and
discover a lot about evolution.

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SIMILARITIES OF EMBRYOS

The study of one type of evidence of evolution is called embryology, the study of embryos. An
embryo is an unborn (or unhatched) animal or human young in its earliest phases. Embryos of many
different kinds of animals: mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, etc. Look very similar and it is often difficult
to tell them apart. Many traits of one type of animal appear in the embryo of another type of
animal. For example, fish embryos and human embryos both have gill slits. In fish they develop into
gills, but in humans they disappear before birth.

This shows that the animals are similar and that they develop similarly, implying that they are
related, have common ancestors and that they started out the same, gradually evolving different
traits, but that the basic plan for a creature’s beginning remains the same.

Evolution home

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The embryos of this hippo, frog, and rabbit all looked very similar in their early stages of
development.

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BREEDING

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Flowers are often bred for brighter and more varied colors.

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This corn has been bred to have many full kernels in straight rows and also to taste good and sweet.

When Darwin returned to England from his voyage on the Beagle, he talked to people who bred
pigeons for show, message carrying, or other purposes. Darwin realized that breeding works much
the same way as his ideas about natural selection, and that many of the same methods that
breeders use can also occur in nature and can explain the way organisms change in nature.

Breeding is artificial selection. People decide what traits they want in an animal or plant. They select
those of the species that have that trait and mate them so that their offspring have that trait.

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Evolution home

For example, if I have a herd of goats and all of them have pretty short hair, but of course, not all of
them have exactly the same length of hair, and I wanted to go into business making goat hair
sweaters, then this is what I would do:

First, I would pick out the goats with the longest hair, some male and some female. I would separate
them from the rest of the herd and let them mate. When they had kids, some of the kids would have
longer hair and some of them would have shorter hair than that of their parents. I would again
separate and mate the ones with the longest hair. This group would have an average hair length
greater than that of their parents. They would have kids, and I would pick out those with the longest
hair (with an average hair length greater than that of their parents or grandparents) and separate
and breed those. If I kept doing this for long enough, I would get some very long haired goats. This is
how breeding works for any trait that someone wants to enhance in an organism.

How is Breeding Like Natural Selection?

How is Breeding Unlike Natural Selection?

How Long Has Breeding Been Happening?

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Strawberries are bred for color, size, and durability. Wild berries taste better.

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This rabbit has been bred for its long fur, which is used to make rabbit-hair yarn. The hair is removed
by gently brushing the rabbit, which does not hurt it.

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Horses are bred for strength, speed, beauty, and size.

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