Saturday, December 29, 2007

Smooth Change in the Fossil Record

When I was first learning about evolution, one of the things that I really wanted to see was smooth, gradual transitions in the fossil record. I didn't want to see fossils based on part of a jaw bone, or a series of creatures very different from each other being displayed as relatives.

It's taken a lot of looking into the subject before I finally found these examples. I'm going to list examples, and then follow it with an article that explains the transition:

Hominid (Human) Evolution

Reptile to Mammal Evolution

Horse Evolution

Keith Miller discusses several transitional sequences (including the two above)

Whale Evolution Chart

Whale Evolution Article*

Ceratopsian Evolution

The Dilemma of the Horned Dinosaurs (Discuss the Ceratops)

Early Vertebrate Evolution

Several Misc. Examples of Smooth Transition


Early Amphibians



* Since the article on whale evolution was written, a more complete Pakicetid fossil was discovered:
http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/Pakicetid.html

2 comments:

Gorilla Mann said...

Hi!

Your link http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/Pakicetid.html is dead. (I hope you get this comment by email.)

Many thanks!

AIGBusted said...

Thanks for the headsup, Gorilla Mann. Here's a better link:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v413/n6853/fig_tab/413277a0_ft.html