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