Changes in living creatures

Once there was a group of creatures called dryopithecus living in Africa. Then these creatures thought to visit the world. They travelled and settled in different parts of the world. But these creatures were facing survival issues. Some of them died and some survived. Then the ones who survived had babies who were fit for this new environment and then they lived happily.

These creatures are your ancestors. This is the real story of how humans came into existence.

Thanks to evolution.

Evolution

Evolution is the change in the characteristics of organisms for survival in certain environments.

Do you want to know what happens in an organism’s body during evolution?

In the cells(building block of life) of your body, there are structures that rearrange themselves during evolution. These structures are called genes(basic unit of the transmission of characteristics from parents to offspring).

Listen! Listen! Listen!

The chimps and apes also evolved from dryopithecus.

Then why are they different from humans?

There are many things that humans, chimps and apes have in common like behavior and body but due to the gene difference they are not that much alike. Humans share 98.8% of genes with apes and chimps. Whereas, a human shares 99.9% of genes with other humans.

Humans are smarter than chimps and apes because humans have more connections of neurons(the cells responsible for receiving sensory information from the environment) in the brain than chimps and apes.

Imagine an elephant without a trunk and tusk(elephant’s two big teeth)!

If you did then that’s almost how elephants used to look many million years ago.

The first elephant was also present in Africa. The elephants of that time had a small size, no trunks and tusks, small ears and skulls, and many teeth.

Then with the help of evolution, they grew trunks for collecting food and breathing underwater, tusks for defense and digging, large ears for hearing voices that even humans can’t hear, and change in feet shape.

Do you know?

The elephants that are born in today’s world have no tusks.

Why?

Because humans kill them for getting their tusks. Then they sell these tusks and make a lot of money.

Why are Americans white and Africans black?

The reason for this is also evolution! . So they evolved to have black color because black color absorbs less radiation from the sun.

In Africa, the radiations of the sun are very high. So they evolved and have black color because black color absorbs less radiations from the sun.

Whereas, white colour absorbs more radiation from the sun.

This type of evolution that only happens in the population is called microevolution.

Isn’t evolution great?

Macro evolution

Once there were 20 sparrows that used to live together and produce babies. One day, they got separated while running away from a hunter. Half of them went to a cold environment and the other half of them went to a hot environment.

Now, they had to survive so they evolved. By these changes, they both became so different from one another that they couldn’t even breed(mate). So they were termed as different species.

These large changes that occurred in organisms make new species. These large changes are called macro evolution.

Natural selection and evolution are not the same!

The mechanism in which only those survive who are fit for the environment is called natural selection.

Then the organisms that survive keep on increasing in numbers and passing their advantageous characteristics from generation to generation. This process is evolution.

How was evolution discovered?

Anaximander was a philosopher that gave the idea of evolution. He said that human children need help for their survival. So there must be some creature whose babies don’t need any help for their survival. So he concluded that baby fishes don’t need any help for survival and humans may have come from them. It means all life started from the sea.

Then scientists researched and found that Anaximander was right.

Isn’t it cool!

Wait, there’s more!

Dryopithecus didn’t evolve into humans besides after Dryopithecus many of your ancestors came. Below are your ancestors that came after dryopithecus.

• Ramapithecus
• Australopithecus
• Homo Erectus
• Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis
• Homo Sapiens(humans)

Maybe or maybe not

The population is increasing very rapidly. It is possible that there will be no place left on Earth for people so scientists are working to make life possible on other planets and are finding planets which can support life. If people will move to other planets it might be possible that they evolve to survive there.