Natural Selection
The process where organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing those good traits to their offspring.
What is Natural Selection?
A color, pattern, or shape that allows an organism to blend into their surroundings.
What is camouflage?
The preserved remains, impression, or trace of an organism that lived millions of years ago.
What is a fossil?
He created the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
Charles Darwin
___BLANK____ caused the trees to turn black and the resulting acid rain destroyed the lichens coating the tree bark.
An inherited characteristic or trait that gives an organism a better chance of surviving and reproducing in its specific habitat.
What is Adaptation?
An adaptation where a harmless animal appears, sounds, or behaves similar to a dangerous animal to trick would-be predators into avoidance.
What is mimicry?
An impression left behind after the remains of an organism dissolves in hardened sedimentary earth.
What is a mold fossil?
A specific type of biologist that studies animals and their habitats in nature. Darwin was a famous one from England.
What is a naturalist?
Because of high contrast in color with the bark, this caused the moths of the opposite color to go extinct.
What is predation or being eaten by predators?
The complete disappearance of dying of an entire species from existance.
What is extinction?
A change or feature in an organism's external body structure that helps it survive in its environment.
Evidence taht an organism was there, even if it did not leave behind its actual body - an organism does not have to die to leave this sort of evidence.
What is a trace fossil?
The type of bird Darwin studied, especially for their beak type, as it related to their food source and the island on which they lived.
The Finch
Predation or being eaten and lack of _____________, led to smaller populations of light-colored moths in the population
A phrase describing how an organism is best adapted to its environment, and thus will survive and reproduce more often.
An internal body process or chemical change that automatically helps an organism survive.
What is a functional adaptation?
A collection of all fossils, discovered and undiscovered, ever preserved within the earth.
What is the fossil record?
The name of the islands where Charles Darwin theorised about natural selection.
What are the Galapagos?
Peppered moth populations changing color in order to survive predators is an example of this.
What is adaptation?
A process where humans choose which plants or animals to breed to get specific desired traits, compared to natural selection.
What is selective breeding? (Also called artificial selection)
An action or choice an organism makes that helps it survive.
What is a behavioral adaptation?
A stony deposit left behind when minerals fill in the impression left after an organism dissolves - often mislabeled a bone, but actually contains no organic material.
What is a cast fossil?
HMS Beagle
What was the ship Charles Darwin sailed in his famous voyage?
The color of the bark in the forest is an example of an ___BLANK____ factor, which determined which moth traits became adaptations.
What is an environmental factor?