Friday, May 20, 2011

Convergent evolution

Lizard fossil provides missing link to show body shapes of snakes and limbless lizards evolved independently

We have talked about convergent evolution and here is another example. There are snakes and then there are legless lizards. Some thought they were closely related since they are both legless, but this new evidence shows that having no legs has evolved in these two groups independently. How can this occur? How is this an example of convergent evolution?