ANTH 1001H Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Southeast Asia, Knuckle-Walking, Mandrill
1 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
What humans are in relation to other living things. The goal of taxonomy is to reconstruct evolutionary relationships. We want to know how long ago ancestors speciated, how closely we are related to other species. Taxonomic classification based on homology: 2 living things have similar structures due to a common ancestry. Ex: human arm, lizard"s front legs, bird"s wing are homologous structures. They represent an ancestral form that is shared. Analogy: similar function in 2 different species, but have separate evolutionary origin. Result of convergent evolution rather than a primitive trait that is shared. Both wings, serve the same function, but basis of wing is separate. Phonetic: taxonomy based on morphology(actual structures and shapes of body parts). Compare morphology of current and past species to help us understand which ones are closely related to each other. Pro is that this system is more accessible, sees adaptation to environment better than cladistics. Cladistics: based on genetic relationship of present species.
