What did a T-Rex Taste Like? Online Activity

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This activity consist of exploring 5 folders. For each folder, answer the following questions.
Folder #1: Life on Earth is very diverse, yet all living things are related. Branching diagram show how living things are related to each other.

  1. What are the names of the three major groups of all living organisms?
  2. Eukaryota includes what kinds of organisms?
  3. Bacteria includes what kinds of organisms?
  4. Archaea includes what kinds of organisms?
  5. If all life is related, whey are the relationships not always obvious in terms of resemblances, or how much organisms resemble each other?
  6. What are the two big ideas you learned in Folder #1?

Folder #2 Lineages can be traced back in time to find a point of common ancestory.

  1. Copy the branching tree diagram that shows how a shark, tuna, frog, human, hare, caiman, and parrot are related. Also label the diagram and show the following:
  2. The frog’s distinct history
  3. The common ancestor for a human and a hare.
  4. The shared history for a tuna and a shark.

Folder #3: Cladograms illustrate evolutionary relationships based upon shared inherited features.

  1. What do cladograms tell us?
  2. How are inherited features represented on cladograms?
  1. We will be dissecting frogs later this year. What features do we, humans share with them?
  1. How are shared features used in cladograms?

Folder #4: Evolutionary relationships can be used to answermany kinds of questions about the history of life. Features Tables: As your explore folder 4, fill in this table with a +,- or ?.

  1. What animal on the provided cladogram do we think T. rex was most closely related to?
  2. What features does T. rex and this animal have in common that makes us think they are closely related?
  3. So, what did T. rex probably taste like? ______


Folder 5: Special Assignment: Solving T. rex's Identity Crisis

Purpose:

Use the cladogram and data on inherited features to make hypotheses about what T. rex was like.

Materials needed:

  • Cladogram and Additional Data
  • Your completed Features Table

Cladogram

To the right is a simple cladogram indicating the
proposed relationship among the caiman,
parrot, and T. rex.

Additional data

This data table indicates the presence or absence of eleven additional features for the caiman and the parrot. Notice that the information about the T. rex has not been filled in. You will need to make that determination based upon what you have learned.


Questions: (Pick at least 3)

Did T. rex have an amniotic egg?
Was T. rex warm-blooded or cold-blooded?
Could T. rex have had feathers?
Did T. rex have color vision?
How many chambers were there in T. rex's heart?
Did T. rex sing to its offspring?