BIOA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Exaptation, Neoteny, Devo

• School: UTSC
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIOA01H3
• Professor: Prof Andrade

Document Summary

Darwin said if my theory is correct we should be able to find transitional forms of the fishes before the tree of life for fishes. Tiktalik/ fishapod was first discovered in 2004, ellesmere island in nunavut. The features of this fish was scales/ gills & lungs/ aquatic and fins. It also has amphibian trait which is neck connects to head and shoulder/ flat head/ eyes on top/ ear notches/ fin skeleton and full set of ribs. Fishes were 375 mya but tetrapod"s were 363 mya. A preadaptation is a trait that an organism has that allows it to function in the current context but by chance will also allow a new context in the environment. Means if the water dried out these organisms would survive in that environment because of the traits that tetrapod"s have. These organisms had multiple off springs with random mutations that affected their phenotypes.