What are fossils? What do they tell us about the process of evolution?
Answer:
Fossils are preserved remains of organisms that existed on Earth at some point in the past.
- When an organism dies, most of it decomposes and gets broken down into simpler forms.
- But some parts do not decompose quickly, traces of such parts (fossils) help us to find evolutionary relations .
- Examination of each layer of the Earth for fossils gives us information about the changes in the Earth’s surface over the years.
- We also get information about the organisms that belonged to that region.
- Fossil records have been used to study the evolutionary relationship between birds and reptiles .
- It also shows how mammals evolved over time .
- Fossil remains show that pteridophytes and gymnosperms are ancestors of angiosperms .
- Stages of Human evolution could also be traced using fossil remains.
