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The flippers of the Penguins and Dolphins are the example of the
Flippers of penguins (birds) and dolphins (mammals) have different anatomical origins but similar functions for aquatic locomotion -> Classic Convergent Evolution!
Analogy refers to structures that are not anatomically similar though they perform similar functions. It is the result of convergent evolution—different structures evolving for the same function and hence having similarity.
NCERT states: "Other examples of analogy are the eye of the octopus and of mammals or the flippers of Penguins and Dolphins. One can say that it is the similar habitat that has resulted in selection of similar adaptive features in different groups of organisms but toward the same function: this is convergent evolution."
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Penguin and dolphin flippers are analogous structures evolved via convergent adaptation to aquatic locomotion.
Divergent evolution produces homologous structures derived from a common ancestral plan (e.g., forelimbs of cheetah, whale, bat).
Adaptive radiation is the evolutionary diversification from a single ancestral species radiating into different ecological niches (e.g., Darwin’s finches).
Natural selection is the general evolutionary mechanism driving both divergence and convergence, but the specific pattern here is convergent evolution.
Assuming because both are tetrapod forelimbs they must be homologous.
"Other examples of analogy are the eye of the octopus and of mammals or the flippers of Penguins and Dolphins... it is the similar habitat that has resulted in selection of similar adaptive features in different groups of organisms but toward the same function: this is convergent evolution."
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