Do species converge or diverge as they evolve?
Waiting at the bus stop, you notice a living microcosm in the grass below. An ant drags potato chip crumbs to a nearby mound; a handful of mushrooms tower above the dirt; a hungry bird pecks strategically at the ground. Interestingly, what sets these organisms apart also draws them (and us) together: the process of evolution. Evolution is defined as descent with modification, which means that existing organisms descended from ancestral ones. Over time, from a few generations to millions of years, evolution’s genetic tinkering of traits and adaptations often result in the creation of new species and the extinction of others. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are best known for their descriptions of a major mechanism of evolution called natural selection, in which certain heritable traits become more
