NOVA Evolution Lab Student Guide
Mission 1 – Training Trees
Even the most basic evolutionary trees reveal deep insights into how different forms of life are
connected.
As you complete each phylogenetic tree, draw it in the space provided. Include organism
names and derived traits. Answer the on-screen questions and circle your answers here.
Red, Green, and Gecko
Is an animal or a plant more
closely related to a fungus?
a. Animal
b. Plant
Familiar Faces
The animals in this puzzle look
very different but they all
have one thing in common.
What trait is that?
a. They’re all amniotes
b. They all have
backbones
c. They all have bilateral
symmetry
Tree of Life: Vegetarian Edition
Is a banana more closely
related to a lemon or an
onion?
a. Lemon
b. Onion
NOVA Evolution Lab Student Guide
Mission 2 – Fossils: Rocking the Earth
Use fossils, clues buried inside of rocks, to unlock the history of life on our planet.
As you complete each phylogenetic tree, draw it in the space provided. Include organism
names and derived traits. Answer the on-screen questions and circle your answers here.
Eating dinosaurs for dinner
Do birds have anything in
common with dinosaurs?
a. Absolutely!
b. No way
One Small Step
According to the tree you just
built, what is the first trait that
helped aquatic species
evolve into creatures that live
on land?
a. Eyes located on top of
head
b. Strong armlike bones
c. Webbed digits
Origin of Whales
Which of the following
species does not have tail
flukes?
a. Blue Whales
b. Pakicetus
c. Dorudon
d. Killer whales
NOVA Evolution Lab Student Guide
Mission 3 – DNA Spells Evolution
The thread of DNA ties together all life on Earth. Use it to investigate how very different
organisms, big and small, are related.
As you complete each phylogenetic tree, draw it in the space provided. Include organism
names and derived traits. Answer the on-screen questions and circle your answers here.
Frog legs and fish eggs
The DNA sequence of the
West Indian Ocean
coelacanth is closest to which
species?
a. Western clawed frog
b. Midas cichlid
One fish, two fish, red fish, lungfish
In 2013, scientists found that
coelacanths are not the
closest relative of four-footed
amphibians and other
animals. Which species is?
a. Midas cichlid
b. South American
lungfish
c. Western clawed frog
d. Great white shark
Where the tiny wild things are
You built this tree using only
DNA information. Why was
examining DNA better than
considering physical traits?
a. Physical traits in singlecelled organisms are
hard to examine.
b. Organisms that behave
differently can be
genetically similar.
c. Certain traits evolve
multiple times in
multiple species, and
DNA helps us track
those changes.
d. All of the above.
NOVA Evolution Lab Student Guide
Mission 4 – Biogeography: Where Life Lives
How is it that certain species wound up living where they do?
As you complete each phylogenetic tree, draw it in the space provided. Include organism
names and derived traits. Answer the on-screen questions and circle your answers here.
Saving Hawaiian Treasure
Look at the way honeycreepers
evolved. If a new species of
honeycreeper were discovered, and it
had a short, straight beak, which bird in
this puzzle would likely be its closest living
relative?
a. Kaua'i 'amakihi
b. 'I’iwi
c. 'Akiapola’au
d. Po’ouli
Cone rangers
Thanks to DNA testing, scientists have
discovered that a tree in South America
is genetically similar to one in Australia.
What is one possible evolutionary
inference they could make from this
discovery?
a. Both species share an ancestor
that lived when the world had
supercontinents
b. The trees are adapted to
seawater and floated between
continents.
Kangas, gliders, and snakes, oh my!
Despite living oceans apart, the North
American kangaroo rat and the
Australian hopping mouse look similar.
Both are nocturnal and burrow
underground. What can you infer?
a. They’re similar because they
lived near each other on
Pangaea and separated when
the continent split.
b. They have similar traits because
they both live in deserts where
burrowing and nocturnal
behavior are beneficial.
NOVA Evolution Lab Student Guide
Mission 5 – Tree of Life and Death
Phylogenetic trees can tell us where medical problems come from, and how to fight them.
As you complete each phylogenetic tree, draw it in the space provided. Include organism
names and derived traits. Answer the on-screen questions and circle your answers here.
Hosting blood flukes for dinner
If blood flukes were to exhibit strict
cophyly over millions of years, you would
predict that blood flukes would:
a. Evolve in a way that’s
completely different from their
current host.
b. Evolve in a manner that
parallels the evolution of their
host.
c. Spread to a species that’s not
closely related.
Fatal fangs
Which antivenom will save Tyler?
a. Antivenom A
b. Antivenom B
c. Antivenom C
d. Antivenom D
Dawn of a modern pandemic
Which ape virus is most closely related to
the HIV virus that has killed about 39
million people due to AIDS?
a. Chimp SIV-EK505
b. Chimp SIV-MB897
c. Chimp SIV-TAN1
d. Gorilla SIV
NOVA Evolution Lab Student Guide
Mission 6 – You Evolved Too
Go find out who your relatives are here on Earth.
As you complete each phylogenetic tree, draw it in the space provided. Include organism
names and derived traits. Answer the on-screen questions and circle your answers here.
Planet of the Apes
Based on this tree, who is your closest
living relative?
a. Chimpanzee
b. Gorilla
c. Orangutan
Back to skull
Which of the following can be inferred
from the tree:
a. The closest living relative of H.
sapiens is H. erectus.
b. H. erectus is more closely
related to H. neanderthalensis
than to H. sapiens.
c. A. afarensis is more closely
related to living chimps than to
living humans.
d. Larger brains are a trait that
separate the genus Homo from
their closest relatives.
Dawn of a modern pandemic
With which archaic human species did
some of the ancestors of modern
Europeans interbreed during the past
100,000 years?
a. Australopithecus afarensis
b. Homo erectus
c. Neanderthal
d. Homo habilis