A house cat and a human are homologous. They both share a very similar bone structure in the forearms. The radius bones in both cats and humans are homologous. Cats come from the feline family and are quadrupeds. They walk on all four limbs. They use their homologous forearms in very different ways than humans. Humans come from the ape family and are bipedal. They use their forearms for grabbing and carrying and not for walking or jumping like cats.
A duck and a duck billed platypus are analogous. They both have bills on their face and webbed feet. Other than these two similarities they share almost nothing in common. Ducks are birds and can fly. Duck billed platypus' can't fly and come from the ornithorhynchus family, they are also much better swimmers. Ducks have feathers and their counterpart platypus do not. Although they share analogous traits they are nothing alike.
Anthro Class Rants,
ReplyDeleteGood job comparing similaries of cats and humans. I like the pictures used on the post.I really have never thought about platypus', but the picture and post, somehow made them very interesting. Good job!
Interesting animal (platypus)... I wonder how that thing developed its bill over time. It would be interesting to see how diet and available food sources gradually changed the way the ancestor of the platypus scavended for food in such a way that it developed a bill similar to an unrelated species that shared their habitat. Good post!
ReplyDeleteWhat might be the common ancestor of humans and cats?
ReplyDeleteI love the duck and the platypus analogy. That's a classic. Can you make a guess at the common ancestor of those to creatures?