Another project I've been meaning to get to involves using plastic animals. This time, it's a mobile. This mobile is meant to demonstrate a biological concept, the
phylogenetic tree.
Darwin himself came up with the first phylogenetic tree, as a way of modeling descent with modification.
Darwin proposed that the hierarchical relationships proposed by
Linnaeus were a reflection of the descent from common ancestors. For example, polar bears, grizzly bears, brown bears and black bears (which biologists all assign to the genus
Ursus), are similar because they share a common ancestor. And furthermore, bears are similar to giant pandas and sunbears because of a more ancient ancestor, and members of the bear family share similarities with seals, skunks and raccoons because of a more ancient common ancestor, and so on and so forth.
We can apply this descent with modification model to any taxon (named group of organisms). For my first phylogeny mobile, I chose mammals. I'm a big fan of making things with plastic animals. I have a lot of animals I spray-painted gold, for example, which I've used as participation tokens in one of the biology classes I've taught.
My materials are fairly simple and inexpensive. The plastic animals can be bought online, or at a big retail place. I got some at a party supply place.
