A question that is interesting to ask when discussing the evolution of vertebrate is the relationships between modern birds and dinosaurs (a group of reptiles of different sizes that mostly became extinct 65 million years ago). Watch the following videos and use the information presented in them to answer the questions in your worksheet.

After we settle the first inquiry of the transition of Therapods into modern birds in the museum Dinsaur Hall, we usually visit the Hall of Mammals. There we ponder to see many transitional forms of mammals that returned to live in aquatic environment and progressively changed to become efficient swimmers who breath air, but live all their life in the ocean (whales and dolphins), or coming to shore only for breeding (seals and sea lions).

The next video discuss the evolution of whales and shows some evidence that are presented in the LA County Natural History Museum (shown in the video!) for the transition from Order Artiodactyla (even-toed hoofed animals) into Order Cetacea (whales and purpoises).

An additional (short, no sound) video that shows the rapid transitions from terrestrial to aquatic form.

If you are now really curious to learn more watch this more scholarly made video on the evolution of whales. It also goes on to discuss modern whales, and purpoises classification.

The last video displays the dioramas of the North American Mammals Hall and African Mammals Hall in American Museum of Natural History in NY. It is extremely similar to the same Halls in the LA County Museum of Natural History that we visit traditionally in this class. Since I couldn’t find a good quality video of our local museum, I chose to share this one with you for your final part of the visit. Remember that when we complete our section on vertebrate zoology, we will study ecology and evolution and emphasize adaptations of organisms to their environment and response to changes in the environment over time.

Download the word document (3 pages) so you can type your answers on this document. You can expand the space for each question as needed. In other words do not feel confined by the space in the template file. Make sure to provide comprehensive answers. The work needs to be written by you, based on what you learned from the videos. You can read more about the topics, but do not copy from other sources. The Turnitin score indicates what percent of the work is unoriginal. Since you are using the template word document a 15% score is OK, but a higher percent indicates that you either did not write much, or that the writing is not your own work. You can type your answers in a different color fonts in order to make it easier for me to see what you wrote and distinguish it from the questions.