Biology Vocab

Observation

• to look and analyze what you see
• "I made an observation about the frog pond"

HYPOTHESIS

• an explanation for something that happened or happens
• "My hypothesis is that snakes
• are afraid of humans and thats why they strike us"

Dependent Variable

• the part in an experiment that is changed
• "The dependent variable is also used in math"

Evidence

• proof of something
• "The evidence from the
• bone structure proves that humans come from fish"

Modern Humans

• people that live in this day and age
• "We are all modern humans"

Hominid

• an early pre-historic human-like creature
• "Lucy is a pre-historic hominid"

Organisms

• any creature that is living or was once living
• "A fish is a type of organism"

Homologous Structures

• a body part that you have learned to live without
• "An appendix is a homologous structure"

Stratigraphy

• a way to find out how old a fossil is
• "We used stratigraphy to find out how old the dinosaur was"

Plate Tectonics

• an idea that plates in the earth move
• "Mountains are created due to plate tectonics"

Radioactive Isotopes

• a chemical element
• "All elements in the periodic table have a number of radioactive isotopes"

Competition

• to fight to survive or win
• "The competition was fierce"

Camouflage

• a way to change or blend into an enviroment
• "The lizard camouflaged into the grass"

Eukaryotic

• a cell type that has a closed membrane
• "Animals have eukaryotic cells"

Darwin's Survival of the Fittest

• an idea that organisms die off from not having
• wanted characteristics and are fit to survive
• "This is also natural selection"

Unity

• to be one or as a whole
• "We need to be unified"

Classification

• to classify
• "Our classification group is Animalia"

Genetic Variability

• The chance to find varying genotypes in a group
• "Genetic variability is important for biodiversity"

Comparative Anatomy

• the study of similarities and differences in the
• anatomy of a species
• "This is related to the evolution of species"

Classification Subgroups

• a small group of organisms with the same traits
• "An example of a subgroup is Kingdom"

Population

• a group of a type of organism living in an area
• "Population numbers of endangered species is decreasing"

Geologic time

• succession of time in geology
• "Ancient history is told using geologic time"

Order

• sequence of things happening after each other
• order in biology is groups of classes that are divided into families
• "Carnivora, Primates and Rodentia are all three orders
• of the class Mammalia"

Class

• a group of organisms with common traits
• "Our class is Mammalia"

Species

• the major subdivision of genus
• "Poison dart frogs are a type of species "

Inference

• an act of inferring
• "I made an inference that she was upset"

Theory

• explanation for phenomena that is regarded as correct
• "Einstein's theory of relativity"

Independent Variable

• the variable that is manipulated in an experiment
• "An independent variable can be the amount of something given to a group"

fossil

• remains, impression, or trace of any once living thing
• "A dinosaur skeleton is a fossil"

Primate

• omnivorous mammal with hands, locomotion, and flexible behavior
• "Humans are a form of primates"

SKELETON

• the bones in an animal forming the framework of the body
• "Without our skeletons we would all be like jelly"

STRATa

• a layer of material
• "Strata is used to find fossils in a layer of the earth"

VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES

• attributes that have lost their function in a species
• "A vestigial structure in our species is the appendix"

continental drift

• the movement of continents from the motion of crustal plates
• "Alfred Wegener proposed the Continental Drift theory"

Extinction

• coming to an end or dying out
• "Dinosaurs died off in extinction"

Adaptation

• to adjust to an enviroment
• "An adaptation is to change the food an animal eats
• to survive in a different enviroment"

predation

• to capture and eat other animals
• "A lion eating a gazelle is an act of predation"

evolution

• to change a species generation to generation
• "Humans went through evolution"

Prokaryotic

• a cellular organism that doesn't have a nuclear membrane
• "Bacteria are prokaryotic"

natural selection

• a process where a species has to change traits
• in order to survive in a changing enviroment
• "Charles Darwin created the theory of natural selection"

Diversity

• variety
• "There is a diversity of cultures here in America"

HIERARCHY

• a system with people ranked one above the other
• "There is a hierarchy of needs"

Gene Recombination

• the process where two genes combine DNA
• "Gene recombination happens during meiosis in eukaryotes"

Comparative physiology

• a study of diversity in organisms
• "Physiology was first directed on humans only"

Cladogram

• a diagram showing the important points in a species variation
• "A cladogram can in the end look like a family tree"

Bipedal

• to walk on two feet
• "Most primates are bipeds"

Kingdom

• the highest rank in classification
• "There is five kingdoms Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, and Monera"

Phylum

• a subdivision of a kingdom
• "An example is the phylum Arthopoda"

Genus

• a subfamily in the classification of organisms
• "Vulpes (foxes) is the genus of the dog family"

Family

• suborder in the classification of plants, animal, etc
• "Felidae (cat) and Canidae (dog) are two families in the order Carnivora