Most mice living on the mainland of Florida are brown, but the mice that live on the sand dunes of the barrier islands have white fur. The differences in color are heritable, determined by genes such as MC1R. It is intuitive that the light color of beach-dwelling mice is an adaptation for blending into their environment—and thus evading predators. What is an evolutionary adaptation? a. a trait that improves the fitness of its bearer, compared with individuals without the trait b. a trait that changes in response to environmental influences within the individual's lifetime c. the ability of an individual to adjust to its environment d. a trait that an individual wants so that it can survive

Video transcript

Welcome back. Let's look at our next question. It says whales evolved from land mammals because they lived in oceans they lost their hind limbs, grew flat tails and developed flippers. This is an example of, so we're talking about structures that changed on an organism in response to its environment. And when we talk about that we're talking about evolutionary adaptations. So that's choice A. Here. So that's gonna be when you have heritable alterations in body structure. So the whale passed those changes down to its offspring and inherited them from its ancestors or habits but help an organism survive in its environment. So in the original land mammals in the new environment of the ocean they had changes in their body structure that were inherited passed down the generations choice B says resistance selection. Well that refers to when you have say um you select for bacteria that are resistant to a certain antibiotic. So not at all related to the development of these structures from a whale. So definitely not the right answer. Choice C. Says artificial selection that would refer to um and human agency doing the selecting of which animals to breed. So developing a dog breed by selecting the smallest parents to breed to obtain smaller offspring. So not what happened here. This is natural selection. Choice C. Is not our answer choice D. Says survival of the fittest. Well survival of the fittest. Um is part of the process when animals with beneficial adaptation survive. Um At a better rate and reproduce at a better rate than animals with less beneficial adaptations but we're not comparing to the whale to any other animal. We're just saying we here this is an example of what when it developed these new structures. So survival of the fittest is not describing the phenomenon that our question is asking us about. So it's not our answer here. So whales losing their high limbs, growing flat tails and developing flippers as an example of choice. A an evolutionary adaptation. See you in the next video.