Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a famous man who came up with the theory of evolution ( animals and

plants changing over hundreds of thousands of years ). He was born on the 12th of February

in 1809 and sadly died on the 19th April 1882. He sailed on a journey for 5 years on the H.M.S beagle ( a boat ) and visited a variety of islands but most importantly the Galapagos Islands

to prove his theory. When he returned home from the great voyage he wrote letters to his

friend Joseph Dalton Hooker about what he had seen that he needed help with the calculations.

Darwin wrote a book called the

Origin Of Species explaining

his theory of evolution and the

Survival of The Fittest which

means that only the cleverest

animals and the animals that

have adapted to the climate

will evolve and survive as the world changes. Some

examples of this include frogs

growing arms and legs to walk

on land.

Biodiversity, short for

biological diversity, is

the term used to

describe the variety

of life found on Earth.

This includes plants,

animals, insects and

microoganisms.

Microoganisms are tiny living things that can only be seen under a microscope. Some of them

include fungi and bacteria. Some microoganisms can be very harmful like viruses (which cause

most of the worlds's diseases ) and some can be very helpful like bacteria (to help you digest

your food and helps to make yoghurt) but if you eat some types of bacteria you could get ill.

Fossils can help scientists and archaeologists to find out what animals lived on our planet millions of years ago but they can also help them with evolution. For example, if an archaeologist discovered a fossil of a prehisoric fish, they could give it to a scientist who would

then compare the prehistoric fish to a modern fish and work out the similarities and differences

such as the modern fish may have more fins and the prehistoric fish may have sharper teeth.

by Aman