The Platypus
Vocabulary
Whale & Horse Evolution
Fun Facts
100

This part of a platypus has electroreceptors that receive electric signals from its prey, which helps it find food. 

What is its bill?

100

When organisms are descended from a single ancestor.

What is common ancestry?

100

Whales evolved from an ancient land animal that had this many legs.

What is four?

100

The name of the largest bone in a human's body. (Hint: it is in the leg.)

What is the femur?

200

This kind of platypus that has a venomous spur on its back feet. 

What is a male platypus?

200

The study of the structures of organisms and their parts.

What is anatomy?

200

Modern horses have a hoof on each leg. The ancient ancestors of horses used to have THIS on each leg.

What are multiple (3-4) toes?

200

This is the only place in the world that you can find platypuses in their natural habitats.

Where is Australia?

300

When a platypus dives underwater to hunt for food, it closes these two things on its body.

What are its eyes and ears?

300

The sequence of heritable changes that occurred among species since the origin of life on Earth.

What is evolutionary history?

300

Ancient ancestors of whales, like the Pakicetus, lived here.

What is on land?

300

The ancestor from which all species of dogs evolved.

What is the wolf?

400

This is the name given to a baby platypus.

What is a cub?

400

To change the frequencies of alleles in a population over time.

What is evolve?

400

Because we are both mammals, whales use these for breathing, just like humans.

What are lungs?

400

The permanent disappearance of a species from Earth.

What is extinction?

500

This helps animals digest their food, but a platypus does NOT have one!

What is a stomach?

500

Similar structures in the anatomy of two different species with common ancestors.

What are homologous structures? 

500

Since the bones in a whale's front flipper are very similar to the bones in a human arm, a whale flipper and a human arm are called THIS.

What are homologous structures?

500

The arrangement of things in the order that they occurred.

What is chronological order?