evolutionary chain

I was wondering if anyone can give me an evolutionary chain of either fossils or living animals,or a mixture of the two, starting in one of the major types of animals and ending with another. For example, fish to amphibian or reptile to bird. I would like a list stating who evolved from whom with descriptions of each animal.

Ned, for some reason I couldn't look at any of those, it said, file not found when I clicked on them. Am I doing something wrong?

quote:

---

The species here are listed roughly in order of appearance in the fossil record (note that this ordering is not meant to represent an evolutionary sequence)

---

I don't think this is what I was looking for. Did these guys evolve from each other?This message has been edited by Christian, 10-28-2005 06:11 PM

I did a bit of reading on this site http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
and concluded that it is most likely not what I am looking for. Let me try to restate what I am looking for to avoid confusion: I would like a chain of animals starting in one major type and ending in another. I don't mean that I have to have definite ancestors. What I would like, however, is something plausible. As I was looking at that tree, there were several ape/man type creatures (apparently), but not a definite order by which they could've evolved. Here's a part of what I read that led me to believe that was not what I was looking for:

quote:

---

Many features of the cranium of A. africanus are more evolved than that of earlier A. afarensis. These features include a more globular cranium and slightly higher ratio of brain size to body size. Also the teeth and face appear less primitive. For years researchers considered the evolution of early humans to pass from A. afarensis to A. africanus and lead to early Homo.

​

However, some researchers now believe that facial features link A. africanus to the "robust" early human species of southern Africa, Paranthropus robustus. Known as anterior pillars, which are located on either side of the nose, these features are found in A. africanus and P. robustus, and not in the eastern African species. This implies that the designation of the genus Paranthropus may be incorrect.

​

As if to confuse the issue even more, recent comparative studies of the postcranial fossils of A. afarensis and A. africanus have placed a whole new unknown into the question. Evidently, the proportion of arm to leg lengths was more ape-like in A. africanus than in A. afarensis. This confuses the phylogeny of early humans because of the discovery of the OH 62 fossil, and the post-cranial paradox it has posed. As a result, some researchers are once again pointing to A. africanus as a possible ancestor of early Homo.

​

In all, A. africanus is an enigma to paleoanthropology. Researchers are still unsure about where A. africanus came from and which species, if any, it led to. It can safely be said that to figure out A. africanus would lead to a great clarification of our early evolutionary history.

---

Maybe I should narrow things a bit more. What if we start with any type of animal with a distinguishing characteristic, and then move backward to show what their ancestor without that characteristic could've been? some possabilities might be the jumping aparatus of the click beetle, the spinneret and male copulating organ of spiders, the wing of a bat, the neck of the giraffe, the male reproductive organs of the dragonfly, the mammary glands or four-chambered heart of mammals, the shells on turtles, etc. Start with any one of these (or come up with another one) and tell me who their most recent ancester was (or could have been) which did not have the distinguishing characteristic.

Thanks, I'll look for that book.

This looks pretty interesting. I read most of it, but as I'm short on time and it is rather long, maybe you can answer this question for me. could these animals actually have evolved from each other? If so, could you give me the chain of actual animals that could've evolved from each other, starting with an animal with the reptile jaw and ending with an animal with the mammal jaw?

It seems pretty useful to me. It's very useful to show evidence of decendence. For example, in biblical geneologies, they start with one guy, We'll call him "A" for the purpose of illustration. Then they say "A" begot "B" and "B" begot "C" and "C" begot "D", etc. This shows that "D" is truly a decendant of "A". In our case, though, we don't know exactly which animals decended from which because we weren't there, so we have to speculate. But it would be very useful to try to piece together actual chains. In any case, if we do have trees, shouldn't you be able to find chains on the trees?

I thought I already answered this but I can't find my answer so I'm doing it again. If I've done it twice, sorry. But I'm not so interested in who you think my cousins are. I'm a whole lot more interested in who you think my ancestors were and why you think they were my ancestors. So for our purposes, I think a chain would be a lot more useful. Anyway, if we have trees, can't we find chains on the trees? If I look at my own family tree, I can find out who my grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather...etc. were.

I guess I did post two replies to that, oops.

Of course not. I'm not calling it a chain. I'm asking for a chain. It seems pretty clear to me that on any tree, there would also be chains you could follow. Let me say again that I am not asking for definite ancestors, only plausible ancestors, I'm even ok with a few missing links. I would simply like to see a chain of ancestry. For example, tell me who the most recent ancestor of the turtle was that had no shell, and then fill in the gap between no shell and shell. But what I don't want is a list of half-shelled species that couldn't have evolved from each other. Rather, fill in the gaps with some sort of plausible chain of actual species of animals that might possibly have evolved from each other. If there aren't chains like this, then I don't know how anyone could possibly say that the fossil record is evidence for evolution. Maybe you can tell me what percentage of species living today are seen in the fossil record.

Right, but within that expansion there are chains. My husband, for example, can trace his geneology for 14 generations by looking at his family tree. He could draw it as a huge, complicated bush, or he could write it as a chain starting with a great-great-great...grandparent and ending with himself. Yes, that leaves out a lot of family members, but it shows who his direct ancestors were. Highly unlikely since the people back then knew who their relatives were and if the geneologies were fictitious, people would've had something to say about it. However this has very little to do with the topic. most of the family is left out on purpose to simplify the geneologies. Simplifying the geneologies is useful to show more clearly who the ancestors were. That may not be why the women were left out, but that's also a whole other topic. With a simple chain I could look at each species and determine if I agree that it is plausible that this species evolved from the previous one. I'd rather not be "hobbled" by a huge bush when all I need is a chain. Well, It's lovely to look forward and imagine the tree of ancestors I will have, but it does very little to prove or disprove evolution. So lets work backwards.P.S. I haven't answered your posts on intelegent design for two reasons.
1)I'm kind of caught up with this thread and the one about the age of the earth right now.
2)You've stumped me for the time being and I'm going to have to do some more research before I can answer you.

There's so much in this thread now, it's hard to find the chains I've been given. You gave me a list, but I clicked on all of those and got nothing. Maybe you could list the chains you want me to take a look at and I'll do that.

It's difficult to know where to start since it's been awhile since I've posted on this topic and so much has been said. I still haven't read everything that's been said. So if I ask questions which have already been answered please bear with me.To anyone I haven't responded to: Please understand that this is because of a lack of time and not because of any desire to avoid anything.That said, I'll jump in. I think you misunderstood me. There have been studies done to try to determine just how complete or incomplete the fossil record is. I thought I'd ask for the information rather than provide it so people wouldn't attack my source. Here's a quote from Michael Denton's book Evolution: a theory in crisis
G.G.Simpson recently estimated the percentage of living species recovered as fossils in one region of North America and concluded that, at least for larger terrestrial forms, the record may be almost complete!(Simpson, op cit, Table 8)Here's a Table compiled from Romer (whatever that is):
#of living orders of terrestrial vertebrates.......43
# of living orders of terrestrial vertebrates found as fossils.....42
percentage fossilized..............................97.7%

​

# of living families of terrestrial vertebrates..............329
# of living families of terrestrial vertebrates found as fossils..261
percentage fossilized...........................79.1%

​

# of living families of terrestrial vertebrates excluding birds...........178
# of living families of terrestrial vertebrates found as fossils excluding birds .........156
percentage fossilized............87.8%(Romer,op cit,compiled from information on pp 347-96)

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Sorry, my time is so limited (I feel I'm saying this over and over). I have not had the chance to read all of the posts on this thread. I would like to take a look at those "chains" and see if they are what I was asking for. First I'll have to find them. I don't see how this is irrelevant, though. I think someone said something about the fossil record being incomplete and that that was why the kind of chain I am requesting cannot be offered. I was trying to argue that the fossil record isn't really as incomplete as people think it is. I would answer this question but I'd rather spend my time looking for those "chains" I've been given

Birds are less easily fossilized than other things.