Per+1+Group+2

“Look, Billy, we have the same arm,” said Roger. “Shut up, Roger. Nuh uh,” Billy refuted. It seemed obvious to him that the arms were different given that Roger and Billy were different animals. Billy went home and told Granny about the event at the park. “Back in my day there was only one animal and it was called Common Ancestor,” said Granny. “Let me tell you younguns a story.” “Granny, there’s only one of me,” Billy said, unaware of the extent of Granny’s dementia. Granny began. “Once upon a time there was a guy named Common Ancestor. He met a lady also named Common Ancestor so that was embarrassing for them. They hit it off right away. Thus they created a baby. But it did not look like Common Ancestor or Common Ancestor. It looked like a whale. They abandoned it and decided to try again to make a baby that looked like them.” “Aw. Poor baby,” said Billy. “Shut up! I’m telling a story. Now where was I? (Ten minutes later) Oh. Baby. The next time they made a baby it looked like bat, so they abandoned that one too. They made another baby because they needed something to fill out their days. This baby looked like a cat and was thus abandoned. They started getting frustrated that their babies didn’t look like them so they made five more that looked like a frog, a lizard, a cow, a bird and a human that were similarly abandoned. Then they got hit by a bus full of manatees because they didn’t want to live with their mutated babies. All the mutated babies made friends with a flamingo that was secretly a doctor but never went to med school. The flamingo’s favorite hobby was performing paternity tests. Each of the abandoned babies came to him separately and asked for a paternity test in order to find out who their father was. The flamingo, not knowing what a paternity test was, took x-rays instead. He discovered something astounding. He quickly called together all of the animals to discuss the test results. ‘Attributes of two organisms are homologous when they are derived from equivalent characteristics of the common ancestor,’ said Flamingo. ‘As you can see from my x-rays, the bones in your arms are similar in that the design is the same but the bones can have different functions. Each structure can be organized into humerus, radius, ulna, carpals and phalanges. Given these HOMOLOGOUS STRUCTURES, we can theorize with relative confidence that you all came from Common Ancestor.’ ‘Yay!’ all the animals responded. Then they all had a party because they found out where they came from and that they were all more alike than they had previously assumed. Then the bus full of manatees joined in the fun. The End.