GEOL 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Femur
30 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
1
GEOL 103
Spring 2018 AEC Notes
Prof. Davis
5/23/18 (Week 8, Class #16) Wednesday
Group Work
● Class objectives
○ Generate and test a historical science hypothesis of biological processes
○ Explain organismal evolution by natural selection and provide supporting
examples from both fossil and modern studies
● Question 1
○ Most primates have excellent color vision. Explain the current hypothesis about
why primates have such good color vision and how it relates to their relatively
poor sense of smell.
■ Good color vision: able to see ripe/nutritious food
■ Have genetics for good smell, but have evolved (broke) because we didn’t
use it so our sense of smell is weaker
■ Evolving the 3rd opsium
● Gene duplication event
○ 2 copies on a chromosome
○ Mutilated to evolve where different colors evolved
● Describe advantage and disadvantage of bipedality. Why do you think hominids evolved
bipedality? How could you test the hypothesis
○ Advantage: surveillance, free hands (open hands)
○ Disadvantage: spin/back problems
○ Hypothesis: develop bipedality to have open hands
○ Test: Did tools show up in the fossil record around same time of bipedality?
● Question 3:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Generate and test a historical science hypothesis of biological processes. Explain organismal evolution by natural selection and provide supporting examples from both fossil and modern studies. Explain the current hypothesis about why primates have such good color vision and how it relates to their relatively poor sense of smell. Good color vision: able to see ripe/nutritious food. Have genetics for good smell, but have evolved (broke) because we didn"t use it so our sense of smell is weaker. Mutilated to evolve where different colors evolved. Hypothesis: develop bipedality to have open hands. Explain why each of these discoveries were important for our understanding of human evolution. Lucy: change in thigh bones and pelvic structure to stand up/balance either. Evidence she was bipedal, 1st similar to humans today. Ardi: more tree climbing (thumb toes), walked upright but still climbed, longer arms. Evidence that hands and feets of primates were used like we use hands today.
