Evolutionary History

2. a group of individuals born and living at about the same time
4. to classify based on scientific examination
7. a group of the same type of organism living in the same area
8. evidence of life from the past, such as fossilized bones, footprints, or leaf prints
11. everything (living and nonliving) that surrounds an organism
12. organisms from any other group
13. structure a part of an organism (for example, one or more bones)
15. sharing a common ancestor population
17. the very long time that spans the history of Earth, from the very first cellular life
19. a specific characteristic of an individual organism
21. the process by which the distribution of traits in a population changes over many
23. a group of organisms of the same kind (in one or more populations) that do not reproduce
24. the process by which one population evolves into two or more different species
27. a random change to a gene that sometimes results in a new trait

1. a trait that makes it more likely that an individual will survive in a specific environment
3. ancestor population an older population from which two or more newer species descended
5. a scientist who studies fossils in order to understand the ancient history of life on Earth
6. a graph that uses bars to show how characteristics or values are distributed within a group
9. a body structure in two or more species that features the same parts (for
10. species a more recent species that evolved from an ancestor population
14. living things, such as plants, animals, and bacteria
16. the process by which species adapt to environmental changes over a very long time
18. to receive genes from a parent
19. the present
20. a related organism from a previous generation
22. when something stays mostly the same over time
25. having died out completely and no longer alive anywhere on Earth
26. an organism's arm, leg, or wing