Q. A biologist is trying to infer how five closely related species of snakes are related to one another. She noticed that some of the snakes have forked tongues and others do not. Which of the following would help her to distinguish their ancestral state?
A) She looks among snake fossils for evidences that being forked is a characteristic of the ancestor of this group, but determines no such fossils exists
B) She locates a specimen of a more distantly related snake to see if it has a forked tongue
C) She looks at a representative mammal species to see if it has a forked tongue
D) She flips a coin
Explanation
Forked tongue snakes may represents the origin of new variety of snake from the non-forked tongue snakes. If biologist is trying to find that how closely these two species are related to each other than, he/she has to locate a specimen of more distantly related snake to see it, wheater, it has a forked tongue or not
Reviewed by Dr. Abubacker
Physics Educator & NEET/JEE Specialist
Ph.D. in Physics with 19+ years of teaching experience.