Word
Definition
Fossil
Any preserved
evidence of an
organism
Evolution
Cumulative
changes in
groups of
organisms
through time
The process of
directed
breeding to
produce
offspring with
desired traits
The process
where some
individuals who
are better
Artificial
selection
Natural
selection
Sentence or
Drawing
The
paleontologist
found a fossil.
Fossils include
everything
from dinosaur
tracks to shells
from longextinct sea
creatures.
Homologous
structure (p.
425)
Vestigial
structures
Embryo
Fitness
equipped live
and the less
well equipped
die.
Anatomically
similar
structures
inherited from
a common
ancestor
Structures that
are the reduced
forms of
functional
structures in
different
species
An early, prebirth stage of
an organism’s
development
A measure of the
relative
contribution an
individual TRAIT
makes to the next
generation
Vestigial
structures in
humans include
the appendix,
wisdom teeth,
and tailbone
(coccyx).
Biodiversity
The variety of
life in an area
that is
determined by
the number of
different
species in that
area
Molecular
evidence
Evidence of
change in the
sequence of
nucleic acids in
molecules such
as DNA and RNA
or the sequence
of amino acids
over long periods
of time