Which category has more biological meaning - all brown birds or all birds descended from a hawklike ancestor? Why?
1 Answer
All birds descended from a hawklike ancestor.
Explanation:
There is no relationship between birds that are brown.
There is a relationship if the birds are descended from a common ancestor. Therefore there is more biologically meaning to the statement that the birds are descended from a hawklike ancestor.
A prime example of this type of descent is found in Darwin's finches of the Galapagos islands. There are 13 different types of finches on the islands. All 13 different types are thought to have descended from a few finches that came to the islands from the South American mainland.
This type of evolution due to existing variations adapting to different niches in the environment has been well documented. The sizes and types of the beaks in the finches oscillates back and forth with the changes in the amount of rainfall
( Read The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner 1994)
