Evolution game: evolutionary trees, Darwin and Lamarck
An evolution game where you place and order things. On ladder cladograms —salmon, frog, lizard and mouse; moss, fern, pine and tulip; lizard, crocodile and bird— you put each trait (four limbs, shelled egg, seeds, feathers…) on the part of the tree where it appears, or each living thing on its branch from the traits. On branching trees you tap the common ancestor of two species, and find that whales are closer relatives of ours than of tuna. There is also ordering the major groups in time and sorting Darwin’s and Lamarck’s explanations, homologous, analogous and vestigial organs, and evidence for evolution.
Biology · Secondary, Sixth form
Relatedness comes from the most recent common ancestor, not from how alike two animals look. That is why the whale is related to us and not to the tuna, and the crocodile to birds. These are exactly the trick questions on phylogenetic trees in biology exams.
The options always include Lamarck’s explanation (they stretched their necks and passed it on), Darwin’s (there was variation and long-necked ones survived more) and other common misconceptions. Seeing both lines of reasoning side by side is the best way not to mix them up.
Fossils like Archaeopteryx, the same bones in an arm, a flipper and a wing, embryos that look alike, the DNA we share with chimpanzees or the Galápagos finches: each kind of evidence comes with a concrete case you remember.
"The lizard, crocodile and bird appear as a ladder. The student puts “Shelled egg” on the first part and “Feathers” on the bird’s branch, and hesitates over “4-chambered heart”: it goes on the part the crocodile and bird share, because they are closer relatives of each other than of the lizard."
Prefer to learn without screens? Try this analogue version:
Pick six animals (for example: dog, cat, whale, chicken, frog and sardine) and list their features: fur, feathers, four limbs, lungs, backbone…
Group first the ones that share the most exclusive features (fur and milk: mammals).
Draw the tree, joining ever larger groups until you reach a common ancestor of them all.
Compare your tree with one from a book or a biology website and find where you went wrong.
If you like Tree of Life, these activities work similar skills:
Another biology game: classify living things with a key of yes-or-no questions.
Genetics: how traits are inherited, the basis of natural selection.
A biology game about the cell, the unit shared by every living thing on the tree of life.
More practice on · Biology
Evolution
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