Birds and bats both have very similar bone structure when it comes to their forelimbs. But even with similar bones making up their forelimbs, some of these bones are longer in bats than they are in birds or vice versa. The minor differences in the bone structure for both birds and bats also extend to the bats possessing stretched skin in this part of their body while birds use their feathers in order to fly. The common ancestor might have possibly been a reptillian ancestor similar to a pterosaur because it's structure of it's forelimbs is almost identical.
Picture:
Top: Pterosaur
Middle: Bat
Bottom: Bird
2.)
Butterflies and birds are both more than capable of flying to their destination but the details regarding the function of their wings is analogous. For butterflies, their wings are kept rigid due to fluid pressure while the wings of birds are structured by bones inside their bodies. The function for both of these species is to fly from destination to destination but that's just about where the similarities stop. There isn't a common ancestor between the two species. Butterflies derived from non flying insects while birds derived from non flying vertebrates where the only similarity would be that both their ancestors did not have the ability to fly.
It's interesting to see that one species' traits could be seen around today when the pterosaur existed so many years ago. Also, I find it kind of mysterious how one(a bird)gets wings with feathers and the other(a bat)gets tiny fur with skin on the wings. Makes you wonder if their habitat had anything to do with it?
ReplyDeleteButterflies and Birds don't have an ancestor with the ability of flight so they must have changed their structure a long time ago. Maybe their Habitat had something to do with it. Over all it's a good analogy between both species and interesting/
Isn't it interesting that if you specify the wing as the trait, the bird and bat wing are analogs, but if you specify the skeletal structure, than they are homologs? :-) Just goes to show how important it is to be specific as possible in your language. You are spot on in your identification of the reptile as a the ancestor.
ReplyDeleteGood work on the analogs. All correct except for the claim that they don't have a common ancestor. All organisms have common ancestors if you go back far enough (100's of millions of years, in this case) but you are correct in pointing out that both arose from non-flying ancestors, meaning that the traits arose independently, which is the definition of an analogous trait.