Vocab Flashcards
Species
A group of organisms that mate with one another to produce fertile offspring
Adaptation
A characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment
Evolution
The process in which populations gradually change over time
Fossil
The trace or remains of an organism that lived a long time ago
Fossil record
A timeline of life made by scientists
Trait
A genetically determined characteristic
Selective breeding
The human practice of breeding animals or plants that have certain desired traits
Natural selection
The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully than less well adapted individual do; a theory to explain the mechanism of evolution
Generation time
The period between the birth of one generation and the birth of the next generation
Speciation
The formation of new species as a result of evolution
Relative dating
Any method of determining whether an event or object is older or younger than other events or objects
Absolute dating
A method that measures the age of fossils or rocks in years
Geological time scale
The standard method to divide the earths long natural history into manageable parts
Extinct
A species that died out
Plate tectonics
The theory that explains how large pieces of the earths outermost layer, called tectonic plates, move and change shape
Precambrian time
Is the time from the formation of earth 4.6 billion years ago to about 542 million years ago
Paleozoic area
The geological era that followed Precambrian Tim and that lasted from 542 million to 251 million years ago
Mesozoic era
The geological era that lasted from 251 million years ago to 65.5 (age of reptiles)
Cenozoic era
The most recent geographical era, beginning 65 million years ago (age of Mammals)
Primates
A type of mammal characterized by opposable thumbs and binocular vision
Hominid
A type of primate characterized by bipedalism, relegation long lower limbs, and lack of tail
Homo sapiens
The species of hominids that includes modern humans and their closest ancestors and that first appeared about 100,000 to 160,000 years ago
