My Inner Fish

The series "My Inner Fish" has really changed my view on how related we are to different other organisms. The videos were about showing how we are similar to fish, and reptiles, and also about the hunt to find the transitional species between land and water.

 One of the questions was "Even though we don't look muck like fish what are some things we have in common with fish? How does this give us evidence for common ancestry?" I was very surprised by how similar we are to fish. Both us and fish have bony skeletons, backbones, and skulls. This shows how we are related to fish because it is too much to be a coincidence. Also both use hox genes and have similar developmental process. Finally we also share some similar bone patterns.


Image link

Image link

Another question was "Why are mass extinctions important?". I was also really surprised by how important they are. They eliminate species, and create new opportunities for species that wouldn't have had the chance to flourish otherwise. For example, it was the extinction of the dinosaurs that open ed up a lot of niches, and allowed mammals to flourish, and even for humans to evolve, and progress as far as we have.