lets play a game... who can find the most information on the evolution of the woodchuck. on your marks........... get set........ go...........
hey. umm. im doing a science powerpoint for school on the evolution of the woodchuck. i cant find anything. if you can help me that would be great...
I presume you mean its Linean systematic name, and not the Latin word that the ancient Romans might have used. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's systematic name is <I>Marmota monax</I>. Finding precise information specifically on woodchuck evolution might be tricky. It’s a lot easier to find info on mammalian evolution in general that might mention woodchucks. I think that this approach might be more interesting than trying to focus specifically on woodchucks. Primitive mammals underwent parallel evolution to form two different types of mammal – placental mammals (incl. the woodchuck) and marsupial mammals with a pouch. Alongside this was the evolution of the egg-laying mammals – the monotremes. It's interesting stuff! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561349/Mammal.html#461517843 <P>
Syst Biol. 1999 Dec;48(4):715-34. Molecular phylogeny of the marmots (Rodentia: Sciuridae): tests of evolutionary and biogeographic hypotheses. Steppan SJ, Akhverdyan MR, Lyapunova EA, Fraser DG, Vorontsov NN, Hoffmann RS, Braun MJ. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! the discussion is a tad bit too long to copy and paste.
Nice reference, but I suspect scientific journal articles will be way too technical for high school projects and too hard to access. Encylopedia-style references might be more appropriate.<P>
oh .. sorry...I read over that post actually. It's not a freely accessible journal so it isn't really accessible unless you have a university log on. Which probably won't be the case. The discussion wasn't too bad. There might be some decent info in it that isn't too techical too understand, but I am at home now because of a successful developmental biology experiment at home, so I won't be able to go online with an university account for a while. Sorry for that. You can always copy paste that picture in your report with mentioning the source and have a short explanation in the text that this figure shows the evolutionary relationships between different marmot-like animals. And 'monax' seems to have split off the main group of 'marmota' quite early. Or something like that. Should impress the teacher of any high school class. Just keep it simple and honest. Don't get too fancy. And ALWAYS mention the reference!!!
