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Evolution in human beings
Essay of human evolution
Evolution in human beings
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The third and final episode of the series of Your Inner Fish is called Your Inner Monkey, but also known as Your Inner Primate. After watching this episode, I truly believe that humans are most closely related to the Primates, for example, monkeys. The episode starts off at an ice rink showing people skating around in a circle. A few moments later a person falls on their butt which is the worst place to fall because you would be failing on your tailbone. Humans have inherited a coccyx, which we get from our monkey ancestors. In 1870, a scientist found a jaw bone that looked like it belonged to the first primate, known as the Natharctus. Natharctus was a climber just like the modern monkeys. Their hands looked very similar to a human hand. It had …show more content…
In Ethiopia, a scientist had found a fossil that looked like an ape but walked on two. They named this creature Lucy. Lucy was 3 in a half feet tall, her legs formed an angle which meant that her knees were close together like humans. Before Lucy, the scientist knew there was still an animal missing and the animal missing was Ardi. Ardi was the first primate to walk on two and who had begun the process for all other primates to walk on two. Ardi was four feet tall as was able to climb in trees but was able to walk upright while on the ground. Ardi has many similarities to humans, for example, Ardi’s top pelvic looked human, but the lower half is longer which meant it was useful for climbing. She was able to grasp with her toes and feet and her hands had long fingers and smaller palm like humans. When I found out that the extra credit was to watch the series of Your Inner Fish, to be honest, I was not very excited. After watching the first episode, I truly was intrigued by the series and could not wait to start the next episode. The series has taught me more about how I was made than I had ever learned throughout my
“Analyses of the hominid indicate that they belonged to a previously unidentified species, which anthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and his colleagues are calling this species Ardipithecus Kadabba. Previous fossil finds from the identical genus has suggested that hominids called kadabba were instead a subspecies of the only other known Ardipithecus species, Ardipithecus ramidus”(Bower 2004). This new hominid is being addressed presently as Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba. “While Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba is not the sought-after link—the yet-undiscovered creature that lived at the cusp of the evolutionary division between man and chimp—Yohannes Haile-Selassie, also a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Berkeley, said the hominid certainly is very close to the branching point.” (Rickman 2001)
Lucy was bipedal and her brain was smaller than that of modern humans. Lucy resembled an ape and was able to make tools to find food and weapons.
Neil Shubin’s book is very informative on how our inner fish is real and definitely present in our bodies today. I have given supporting evidence on how our bodies are based on simple changes (relatively) to already existing systems. This is seen even today when scientists study organisms with a simpler body plan than us to understand medical conditions and mutations in the human body. We were created from variations and modifications to become what we are today and this an astounding thing. Our body plan was possible due to simpler organisms and this gave way to the life we know today.
The evolution of man is constantly in question. While we are reasonably sure that modern humans and primates are both related to the same common ancestor, there is constant debate over what initially caused the two species to split into early hominids and apes. According to some, our longest and most popular theory on the division of man and ape is profoundly wrong. However, those same individuals usually offer an equally controversial theory as a substitute, one that is almost impossible to scientifically test or prove. Both the Savanna Theory and the Aquatic Ape Theory offer solutions to how and why humans evolved into bipedal toolmakers. But with enough questioning, each loses its accountability to rhetorical science.
Her face was projected, and her skull and brain were smaller than a regular human skull. Her face and brain were small similar to a female chimpanzee, which made her teeth relatively small. Her enamel thickness and the residue found on her teeth indicate that her diet varied among meat and fruits. Ardi’s lower back more vertebrae compared to a back of arboreal African apes. Most important, her pelvis and hips were positioned so she can walk up, will also being capable of climbing trees. She also had large hands and no apposable thumb and a big toe for grasping, her wrists were very flexible compared to modern apes, yet similar in a way to
After millions of years that humans separated from their relative primate how is that humans became bipedal. So many changes have happened to the human body to decide to stay on the ground and abandoned their lives in the trees. Primates evolved different body structures according to their lifestyle and the ecosystem in which they lived. As Charles Darwin natural selection stays; it could be as a result of new environments, the need for food and shelter, which forced humans to adapt and survive. Although, most of primates’ anatomy reflects habits of movement, it could be easy to see the external differences but there are many differences that have been intensely studied and researched.
: Primates didn’t just appear among Earth, but they evolved. The coevolution has to do with flowers and fruits. Fruits were evolving to get tastier for primates to eat and as primates ate them they spread them around as well. As they ate these new evolved fruits and flowers this invited changes onto their bodies as
Primates, any placental mammal of the order Primates, normally having flexible hands and feet and, in the higher apes, a highly developed brain (“Primate”, 2016), have been one of the most popular animals and prominent attractions in zoos.
While reading the book, Your Inner Fish, I initially struggled to understand the significance of this book to the lecture material. I could plainly see that much of the material presented in the book was similarly discussed in lecture. In lecture we learned the three factors necessary to find fossils and Neil Shubin elaborated this by recognizing the significance of a geological survey in an old test book that helped him realize where he need to look to find these fossils. The transition from aquatic like to life on land was revealed through his discovery of Tiktaalik, which filled a missing gap in the phylogenic tree. Another point discussed in lecture and the book was how specific genes differentiate into our forelimbs, common to land animals
Australopithecus afarensis existed between 3.9 and 3.0 million years ago. The distinctive characteristics of A. afarensis were: a low forehead, a bony ridge over the eyes, a flat nose, no chin, more humanlike teeth, pelvis and leg bones resembled those of modern man. Females were smaller than males. Their sexual dimorphism was males:females; 1.5. A. afarensis was not as sexually dimorphic as gorillas, but more sexually dimorphic than humans or chimpanzees. A lot of scientists think that Australopithecus afarensis was partially adapted to climbing the trees, because the fingers and toe bones of the species were curved and longer than the ones of the modern human.
Apes, like humans, are catarrhines and part of the superfamily hominoidea. Apes started to appear in the Miocene about 20 million years ago(lecture notes, week 10), under this category there are many primates that are distinguished as apes, such as, orangutans, gibbons, chimpanzees, and gorillas. These particular primates are from the old world and are native to Africa and Asia. Apes can be distinguished by the foramen magnum towards the back of the skull, having no tail, and having a hook nose (Larsen 2013, p. 150). Another characteristic of apes is that they have large brains for their body size, this is important because it shows they have a higher intelligence than other animals, and this can be connected to the relationship shared with humans.
If you see a group of monkeys casually walking around in a grassland environment (like those shown on the right), you can be sure that they are from the Old World. Many of the larger New World monkeys have prehensile, or grasping, tails that are capable of being used as strong "third hands" for holding onto branches and supporting their bodies. None of the Old World monkeys or apes has this capability. Many species of Old World monkeys have ischial callosities , or hairless callous pads, on their rumps which may be adaptations for long periods of sitting or sleeping on rough branches and rocks.
The first group of primates was the Ardipithecus group. They were the earliest humans closely related to other primates. The Ardipithecus group evolved in Africa and took the first step upright on two feet. Sahelanthropus tchadensis was the first human species to ever walk the earth. They were the building block of more complex species to come. There were many species that started the human race such as the Orrorin tugenensis. This species was nicknamed the Millenium Man and live 5.8-6.2 million years a...
One of the most important and pivotal physical and biological adaptations that separate humans from other mammals is habitual bipedalism. According to Darwin, as restated by Daniel Lieberman, “It was bipedalism rather than big brains, language, or tool use that first set th...
According to Britannica Encyclopædia, Australopithecus anamensis lived in Kenya between 4.2 million and 3.9 million years ago. A. afarensis lived in eastern Africa between 3 and 4 million years ago. This australopithecine had a brain size a little larger than chimpanzees. Some had canine teeth more sticking out than those of later hominines. No tools of any kind have been found with A. afarensis fossils.