Chapter 1 - Finding Your
Inner Fish
- Explain why the author and his
colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search
for fossils. Be sure to include the types of rocks and their location
during their paleontology work in 2004.
- Describe the fossil Tiktaalik. Why does
this fossil confirm a major prediction of paleontology?
- Explain why Neil Shubin thinks Tiktaalik
says something about our own bodies? (in other words – why the Inner Fish title
for the book?)
Chapter 2 - Getting a Grip
- Describe the “pattern” to the skeleton
of the human arm that was discovered by Sir Richard Owen in the mid-1800s.
Relate this pattern to his idea of exceptional similarities.
- How did Charles Darwin’s theory explain
these similarities that were observed by Owen?
- What did further examination of
Tiktaalik’s fins reveal about the creature and its’ lifestyle?
Chapter 3 - Handy Genes
- Many experiments were conducted during
the 1950s and 1960s with chick embryos and they showed that two patches of
tissue essentially controlled the development of the pattern of bones
inside limbs. Describe one of these experiments and explain the
significance of the findings.
- Describe the hedgehog gene.. Be sure to
explain its’ function and its’ region of activity in the body.
Chapter 4 - Teeth
Everywhere
- Teeth make great fossils - why are they
“as hard as rocks?”
- What are conodonts?
- Shubin writes that “we would never have scales,
feathers, and breasts if we didn’t have teeth in the first place.” (p. 79)
Explain what he means by this statement.
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