Chapter 35 Lecture Enrichment Ideas
Describe the development of the chordates from ancestral invertebrates, through the invertebrate chordates, to the vertebrates.
Contrast features shared by vertebrates and arthropods that make them so successful. If harsh environmental conditions arose, which would likely survive longest?
Compare the "new" evolutionary characteristics of jawed fishes, amphibians, and reptiles that made them more successful than their predecessors at competing to fill a habitat.
Most of these organisms are far more interesting to students if you have good visual images of them, particularly the more exotic animals.
Discuss the evolutionary significance of continental drift in the development of monotremes, marsupials, and placental mammals. Discuss the fact that South America was inhabited by marsupials until relatively recently (within the last 20,000 years or so), when the land bridge formed between North and South America, which allowed placental mammals to reach South America and led to the extinction of many marsupials. Consider whether the same thing is happening in Australia now, since humans have introduced dogs, rats, rabbits, etc.
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