Deck 20: The Evolutionary History of Life

Question 1

Why did it take so long for eukaryotes to evolve after photosynthetic prokaryotes began releasing O₂ into the atmosphere?

A)O2 moves slowly through larger cells, so higher concentrations of O2 had to become available before eukaryotic cells could be efficiently supported.
B)The ability to use O2 had to evolve before cells could survive in an O2-rich atmosphere.
C)The ability to break down the waste products of O2 use had to evolve before cells could use it to create energy.
D)Enough prokaryotes had to become extinct to provide eukaryotes with a niche to occupy before they could evolve.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Why is the fossil record incomplete?

A)Transitional forms of organisms do not exist because evolution constantly forms new organisms from scratch.
B)The remains of organisms form fossils by chance and are later discovered by chance.
C)DNA evidence cannot be obtained from fossils.
D)Evolutionary trends cannot be determined without complete skeletons, which are rare.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

At which labeled point in the graph below are the first eukaryotes thought to have evolved?

A)Point A
B)Point B
C)Point C
D)Point D

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The oldest fossils of terrestrial animals are of

A)spiders and millipedes.
B)insects and snakes.
C)mice and bats.
D)birds and mammals.

Question 5

The appearance of eukaryotes may have been delayed until more _____ accumulated in Earth's atmosphere.

A)oxygen
B)nitrogen
C)carbon
D)sulfur

Question 6

The first eukaryotes evolved approximately _____ years ago.

A)200,000
B)200 million
C)2 billion
D)2 trillion

Question 7

Which of the following is not documented by the fossil record?

A)Some organisms that lived in the past are unlike living organisms we see today.
B)Some organisms that once lived on Earth have disappeared.
C)The species living today are the same as the species that lived in the distant past.
D)Over time life has evolved.

Question 8

The Cambrian explosion

A)caused a lack of air in Earth's atmosphere.
B)was caused by an increase in volcanic activity.
C)was volcanic in nature.
D)increased the diversity of animal life on Earth.

Question 9

You are looking at the side of a cliff with many clearly visible layers of rock. In the top layer you find the fossil of a mouse. In the next layer down you find the fossil of a frog. Two layers down from that you find the fossil of a beetle, and in the deepest layer the fossil of a millipede. This is evidence that

A)mice evolved before frogs.
B)frogs evolved after mice.
C)millipedes were the first among these animals to evolve.
D)the beetle evolved before millipedes.

Question 10

Which of the following is an example of a fossil?

A)the footprint of an ancient humanlike being
B)an insect preserved in hardened tree sap
C)an imprint of feathers and a skeleton in a rock
D)all of the above

Question 11

The leg bones of the first tetrapod (shown in the diagram below)are hypothesized to have evolved from bones in the

A)legs of an amphibian.
B)wings of a bird.
C)fins of an aquatic mammal.
D)fins of a fish.

Question 12

Scientists use existing fossils to predict what the transitional forms between organisms might look like. Why is it so hard for scientists to find fossils of these transitional forms?

A)Scientists have no way to determine how deep in a rock to look for a transitional fossil, so they just have to dig and dig until they find the right fossil.
B)Because of continental drift, the exact location of where a transitional fossil should be found cannot be determined. Looking for a particular fossil that could be anywhere on the planet is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
C)Fossils of transitional species may have never formed due to environmental conditions, or if they did form, natural processes like erosion may have destroyed them.
D)The transitional form of any organism is only hypothetical in nature; it never truly existed on the planet and, therefore, could never become a fossil.

Question 13

We know that whales evolved from the same evolutionary ancestor as even-toed hoofed animals like cows and hippopotamuses because

A)whales, cows, and hippopotamuses have the same DNA sequence.
B)whales, cows, and hippopotamuses all exhibit an anklebone with a unique shape.
C)scientists have been able to induce whale embryos to develop into cows in the laboratory.
D)remnants of horns are obvious on the skulls of whales.

Question 14

Which kind of organism makes up the oldest fossil found on Earth?

A)protists
B)animals
C)bacteria
D)plants

Question 15

Which of the following methods would give the most accurate estimate of the age of a fossil?

A)Measuring the decay of radioisotopes in the fossil.
B)Comparing the depth of the fossil in the Earth's crust to the depth of fossils of known ages.
C)Comparing the chemical makeup of the fossil with that of the surrounding rock.
D)Determining where on Pangaea the fossil was formed.

Question 16

Which of the following statements about the fossil record is true?

A)It is useful only for plant species.
B)It is not a useful tool for understanding evolution.
C)It contains an example of every species that ever lived on Earth.
D)It supports our current understanding of evolution.

Question 17

The first vertebrates to colonize land were

A)birds.
B)mammals.
C)amphibians.
D)reptiles.

Question 18

Fossil anklebones from the ancestors of whales and the anklebones of hippopotamuses have the same shape, which is an adaptation for running on land. This suggests that

A)whales and ancient hippopotamuses underwent convergent evolution.
B)whales and ancient hippopotamuses evolved from a common ancestor.
C)the fossils of ancient hippopotamuses should be found in the same location and at the same depth from the Earth's surface as the fossils of ancient whales.
D)whales evolved from aquatic dinosaurs, whereas hippopotamuses evolved from terrestrial dinosaurs.

Question 19

The first land plants

A)were descendants of fungi that developed photosynthesis.
B)evolved from green algae that could already carry out photosynthesis.
C)were ferns and small shrubs.
D)grew from the seeds of marine plants.

Question 20

Which of the following groups of animals evolved the most recently?

A)invertebrates
B)amphibians
C)reptiles
D)mammals

Question 21

The figure below shows the number of living taxonomic families that existed on Earth during the last 540 million years. The sudden decreases in family numbers at 445, 360, 250, 200, and 65 million years ago represent Earth's five mass extinction events. Based on this data, which mass extinction had the biggest impact on the overall diversity of life on Earth?

A)200 million years ago
B)250 million years ago
C)360 million years ago
D)445 million years ago

Question 22

Continental drift has played a role in which of the following?

A)changing regional climate
B)extinctions
C)promoting speciation
D)all of the above

Question 23

Which of these skulls below belongs to a mammal?

A)Skull A
B)Skull B
C)Skull C
D)Skull D

Question 24

The supercontinent Pangaea began to break up

A)before there were any dinosaurs.
B)after terrestrial organisms had evolved.
C)before the existence of land plants.
D)before photosynthesis began producing oxygen.

Question 25

The Cambrian explosion resulted in the evolution of more than 17,000 species of an animal known as the trilobite. The shear number of trilobite fossils found in modern times suggests that trilobites were very abundant, perhaps the rulers of the seas. Today, no living descendants of this group exist. What happened?

A)Because trilobites evolved before the first mass extinction, it is possible that any of the five mass extinctions could have wiped out the entire group.
B)In order to disappear from the planet entirely, trilobites must have undergone the process of adaptive radiation.
C)It is unlikely that trilobites could have survived the increase in atmospheric oxygen once the process of photosynthesis had evolved.
D)Being so plentiful, trilobites must have been the major food source for terrestrial dinosaurs. The extinction of the trilobite may have caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs.

Question 26

Which of the following represents the order in which terrestrial life evolved?

A)millipedes, green plants, amphibians, insects, reptiles
B)millipedes, insects, green plants, reptiles, amphibians
C)green plants, reptiles, millipedes, insects, amphibians
D)green plants, millipedes, insects, amphibians, reptiles

Question 27

Which of the following does not lead to adaptive radiation?

A)mass extinction
B)adaptations that allow an organism to use its environment in new ways
C)low levels of competition between populations
D)a low amount of gene flow between populations

Question 28

One way mammal limbs differ from reptile limbs is that

A)reptiles walk in a more upright posture than mammals do.
B)mammal limbs are more vertically oriented.
C)all mammals walk on two legs.
D)reptiles have totally different limb bones than mammals have.

Question 29

The first group of vertebrates that could complete their life cycle without returning to water was

A)amphibians.
B)reptiles.
C)mammals.
D)birds.

Question 30

Which of the following is not a difference between living mammals and living reptiles?

A)method of movement
B)classification as animals
C)tooth features
D)jaw structure

Question 31

The first mammals

A)were probably most active during the day.
B)were the size of modern horses and elephants.
C)had large eye sockets.
D)underwent rapid adaptive radiation during the "reign" of the dinosaurs.

Question 32

For insects, could there be a connection between being the first organism to fly and being the most diverse terrestrial organism today?

A)Probably not; terrestrial insects are only so diverse because they have been around so much longer than other animals and have, therefore, had more time to evolve.
B)Yes; the ability to fly between populations decreases gene flow resulting in rapid speciation.
C)No; only environmental changes can lead to adaptive radiation of a group as large as insects.
D)Maybe; because insects were the first in the air, they had a variety of habitats to explore without competition, which often leads to adaptive radiation.

Question 33

During the time of Pangaea, an ancestor of modern crocodiles inhabited the region marked by the star in this map (left in the figure below).
Where would you expect to find fossils of this animal today (the map on the right)?

A)Northern Hemisphere
B)on every continent
C)Africa
D)Antarctica

Question 34

Which of the following is not a key step in the evolutionary transition from reptiles to mammals?

A)the development of an opening in the bones behind the eyes
B)the development of a larger hole behind the eyes and some specialization of teeth
C)changes in the jaw hinge
D)the development of bones in the reptilian inner ear

Question 35

Mass extinctions cause the loss of many species, no matter how well adapted those species were before the extinction. Why might previous adaptations not help a species survive a mass extinction?

A)The rapid environmental changes that cause mass extinctions do not leave the organisms time to adapt.
B)Ongoing continental drift allows more species to interbreed, which lowers the genetic variability available for adaptation.
C)Adaptive radiations are stronger than adaptations.
D)Well-adapted organisms will not be affected by mass extinction; these are the groups that will survive.

Question 36

Life evolved in the oceans long before it evolved on land. Which of the following had to occur before organisms were able to live on land?

A)The Earth's landmasses had to become wetter.
B)Organisms had to adapt to the harsh, dry conditions faced by life on land.
C)Animals had to develop internal skeletons and efficient transport mechanisms.
D)The supercontinent Pangaea had to break up into subcontinents.

Question 37

Which of the following statements about continental drift is true?

A)It is the slow movement of the continents over time.
B)It encourages gene flow.
C)It no longer occurs.
D)It has had no effect on speciation.

Question 38

Which of the following was not necessary for plants to develop in order to adapt to life on land?

A)photosynthesis
B)roots
C)waterproofing
D)transport mechanisms within stems

Question 39

Why might many new species form in the aftermath of a mass extinction?

A)Gene flow among the remaining species would be increased, giving rise to many new genetic recombinations.
B)Changed environments and reduced competition would provide opportunities for new adaptations.
C)New environments would increase mutation rates.
D)Populations of remaining species would expand rapidly and reduce geographic isolation.

Question 40

The most recent mass extinction, which occurred during the Cretaceous period, may have been caused by

A)extra heat from the sun.
B)the pull of the moon on Earth.
C)the dinosaurs.
D)an asteroid hitting Earth.

Question 41

Which of the following is true?

A)Genetic studies are not useful in constructing hominid evolutionary trees.
B)Breeding did not occur between various populations of Homo.
C)Only one species of hominid has inhabited Earth at any given time.
D)Different species of hominids probably coexisted on Earth at various times.

Question 42

Hominids adapted to life on the ground approximately _____ years ago.

A)3.5 billion
B)130,000
C)600 million
D)5-7 million

Question 43

Which of the following is a characteristic of hominids but not of other primates?

A)bipedal walking
B)five fingers
C)flexible elbow and shoulder joints
D)large brain compared to body size

Question 44

A certain species of tree frog was able to "re-evolve" teeth on their lower jaws because

A)mutations are more likely to occur in regions of the genome that affect jaw formation.
B)the mutations that led to the "toothless" allele were corrected over time by DNA repair proteins.
C)organisms tend to encounter the same environmental pressures every few million years.
D)the genes involved in tooth formation are still in the frog's genome.

Question 45

If the Neandertals are not the direct ancestors of humans, is it still possible for humans and Neandertals to be related?

A)Yes, because we share a common ancestor.
B)Yes, but only if humans and Neandertals could have interbred.
C)No, because the human evolutionary tree is strictly linear and without branches.
D)No, because this means that Neandertals evolved from an entirely different branch of organisms than humans did.

Question 46

Which of the following is true?

A)Homo habilis could probably use, but not make, fire.
B)Homo erectus and Homo habilis probably used stone tools.
C)Homo habilis had a larger brain and skull than Homo erectus.
D)Homo erectus was the first bipedal hominid.

Question 47

Examine the diagrammatic representation below of the multiregional hypothesis for the origin of modern humans. If this hypothesis is valid, what allowed all three hominid groups to develop into one species despite their different geographical locations?

A)gene flow
B)genetic drift
C)adaptive radiation
D)plate tectonics

Question 48

Which of the following is not true about archaic Homo sapiens species?

A)They have been found in Africa.
B)They developed ways of making tools.
C)Neandertal was an advanced type of archaic H. sapiens.
D)They were more primitive than H. habilis.

Question 49

Archaic Homo sapiens gave rise to

A)Neandertals and modern humans.
B)Homo habilis and Australopithecus africanus.
C)Australopithecus africanus and Neandertals.
D)Homo erectus and Homo habilis.

Question 50

The evidence of a partially opposable big toe in early hominid foot-bone fossils suggests that early hominids

A)may have continued to use trees as a method of travel.
B)were not human ancestors.
C)could not walk upright.
D)were not primates.

Question 51

The first members of the genus Homo arose approximately _____ years ago.

A)200,000
B)2 million
C)1 billion
D)3.5 billion

Question 52

Populations of ancient humans

A)used random mating to increase the genetic differences between populations.
B)were very similar due to a large amount of gene flow between populations.
C)were essentially identical due to a high level of interbreeding.
D)had large differences due to genetic drift.

Question 53

Based on the "out-of-Africa" hypothesis, which of the following is the most likely reason why species like Neandertals and Homo floresiensis do not exist today?

A)Modern humans out-competed and replaced other populations as they migrated around the world.
B)Extensive gene flow between human populations led to a blending of traits that resulted in the evolution of modern humans.
C)As modern humans developed new and more accurate hunting skills they were able to hunt other "undesirable" populations to extinction.
D)Climate change in Africa caused the extinction of all human populations except for the ones that gave rise to modern humans.

Question 54

What does the positioning of the toe indicated by the arrow in this figure suggest about the owner of this fossil hominid foot?

A)This hominid probably spent all of its time climbing through trees.
B)This hominid was a hybrid produced from the mating of a Neandertal and an archaic human.
C)This hominid has a partially opposable toe. It probably walked upright and spent some time in trees.
D)This hominid was a member of an extinct line of human evolution that lived exclusively in water. It was probably the source of the myth of the mermaid.

Question 55

In the figure below, the arrows on the map indicate a hypothesis regarding the movement of modern human populations throughout the world.
In 2004, a set of human tools dated to 50,000 years old was found at the location of the star on the map (the southeast United States). If the age of these tools is correct, which of the following is true?

A)This discovery disproves the out-of-Africa hypothesis.
B)This discovery confirms the multiregional hypothesis.
C)This discovery suggests that modern humans evolved in North America rather than Africa.
D)This discovery suggests that the human colonization occurred at a much faster rate than previously hypothesized by scientists.

Question 56

The development of an upright stance in human ancestors is thought to be linked to

A)a switch from life in water to life on land.
B)the loss of tool-carrying ability.
C)a switch from life in the trees to life on the ground.
D)the loss of a pronounced heel and arch in the foot.

Question 57

Which word could not be included in a description of humans?

A)ape
B)mammal
C)quadruped
D)primate

Question 58

Which of the following is not an advantage of being bipedal?

A)The additional height gained by standing on two legs allowed humans to easily see approaching predators.
B)Standing up freed up human hands allowing them to carry and use tools.
C)Standing up makes it easier to climb trees.
D)Walking on two feet is faster than walking on four feet.

Question 59

According to the multiregional hypothesis,

A)Home erectus evolved into modern humans in Africa and then migrated all over the world.
B)Home erectus migrated throughout the world and then evolved into modern humans.
C)Isolated populations of Home erectus and Homo habilis evolved separately into modern humans.
D)Different populations of Homo erectus migrated back to Africa and became a single population that evolved into modern humans.

Question 60

An archaeologist discovers several skeletons and a collection of stone tools of the same age in a cave. The individuals were clearly bipedal. The skull shows that the individual had a small brain (compared to modern humans)and apelike teeth. Which of the following did the archaeologist most likely discover?

A)Homo sapiens
B)Homo habilis
C)Neandertal
D)Australopithecus afarensis

Question 61

Using Uranium-235, a ____________________ with a half-life of 700 million years, allows scientists to determine the approximate age of a fossil.

Question 62

The earliest forms of life evolved and lived in ____________________.

Question 63

Following each of Earth's five mass extinction, the diversity of life on Earth has ____________________ [increased or decreased] over time.

Question 64

Evidence that the Cretaceous mass extinction was created by the impact of an asteroid is the existence of a huge ____________________ buried under sediments off the coast of Mexico.

Question 65

Mammals branched out to evolve many new species after the extinction of the ____________________.

Question 66

The first members of the genus Homo originated on the continent of ____________________.

Question 67

Adaptive ____________________ is the diversification of groups of organisms to form new species and higher taxonomic groups. It can occur after a mass extinction or at other times.

Question 68

The extinction of dinosaurs caused an end to the ____________________ between dinosaurs and mammals, thus allowing mammals to evolve to fill some ecological roles the dinosaurs had previously filled.

Question 69

The first single-celled organisms arose 3.5 ____________________ years ago.

Question 70

Many organisms decompose rapidly after death; some organisms have had soft bodies and some areas where organisms died have undergone massive geologic changes. For these reasons, the ____________________ record is incomplete.

Question 71

The ____________________ hypothesis of human origins suggests that modern humans evolved from H. erectus populations located throughout the world.

Question 72

Descendants of ____________________ were among the first organisms to colonize land.

Question 73

After the extinction of the dinosaurs the adaptive radiation of ____________________ set the stage for the eventual evolution of humans.

Question 74

The oxygen necessary to support much of life on Earth is a waste product of an important adaptation, the process of ____________________.

Question 75

Mammals evolved from ____________________ about 220 million years ago.

Question 76

Recent evidence contradicts ____________________ law, which states that once a trait is lost in a species, it never comes back.

Question 77

____________________ have flexible arm joints, short snouts, opposable thumbs, and big toes.

Question 78

In this diagram, the organism in the middle is classified as a ____________________, a group of reptiles that has jaws similar to those of a mammal.

Question 79

The term that describes the upright walking of humans on two legs is ____________________.

Question 80

Ninety-five percent of marine invertebrate species went extinct during the ____________________ mass extinction