All articles tagged with #ancestral traits
Researchers studying wild tomatoes in the Galápagos Islands discovered that plants on the younger western islands are producing alkaloids identical to those of ancient ancestors, suggesting a reversion to ancestral traits possibly as an adaptation to harsher environments, highlighting the flexibility and complexity of evolutionary processes.
A new study challenges the idea that marsupials are more 'primitive' than mammals by showing their development has changed more than mammals since they last shared an ancestor. The findings suggest that the extremely young age of marsupial births represents the more specialized type of development that required greater changes in traits compared to our shared ancestor than our strategy of allowing young to develop within us for longer. The changes most likely reflect environmental demands or lack thereof.