Evolution

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Vestigial structures

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Structures that no longer serve a purpose in an organism.

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Fossil formation

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Environmental conditions have to be just right to prevent decay for living things to become fossils.

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Example of a vestigial structure

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The wings of an ostrich.

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Genetic drift

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A chance occurrence that negatively affects a population because the population is small.

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Common ancestry in vertebrates

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The similarity of early embryos of different species suggests evolution from a distant common ancestor.

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Homologous structures

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Structures in different species that are similar due to shared ancestry.

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Population

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A group of individuals of the same species living in a specific area.

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Gene pool

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The total collection of genes in a population at any one time.

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Catastrophism

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The theory that changes in the Earth's crust during geological history have resulted from sudden, short-lived, and violent events.

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Speciation

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The process by which new species arise from existing species.