Chapter 2, Problem 16STP

Summary Introduction

To analyze:

Birds and bats are not closely related.

Introduction:

Birds and bats, both seem to be similar to each other like both have wings and can fly. Their bones of the wings are similar but they are not closely related to each other. Their bones are light and delicate which makes them easy for flight. They both use air currents to fly.

Explanation of Solution

Though bats and birds both have wings, but that does not mean they are closely related. When we observe the wings of them carefully, we observe that in bats, there are short wings and flaps of skin are present which is stretched in between the bones of fingers and arm. Bats have three fingers over which skin is stretched.

Whereas bird wings consist of feathers which is present or extended all along the arm. They have fused arm and hand bones.

Birds and bats have analogous wings as they did not inherit their wings from common ancestor.

Conclusion

Thus, we can say that though birds and bats both have wings, but they are not closely related because their wings are analogous structures, which means, they have similar function but different origin.