Sentence examples for aquatic ancestry from inspiring English sources
Although bryophytes have become adapted to life on land, an apparent vestige of their aquatic ancestry is that the motile (flagellated) sperm depend on water to allow gamete transport and fertilization.
Although the lower vascular plants have adapted to terrestrial life, they are similar to bryophytes in that, as an apparent vestige of their aquatic ancestry, all produce motile (flagellated) male gametes (antherozoids, or sperm) and must rely on water for fertilization to take place.
Here we focus on "aquatic ancestry" of Proboscidea, interordinal relationships within Placentalia, proboscidean taxonomy in general and South American in particular, anatomy and physiology and some ecological considerations.
Elephants retain certain features from their aquatic ancestry such as their middle ear anatomy and the internal testes of the males.
The derived position of Tetanocerini within Sciomyzidae suggests the freshwater aquatic habit is a unique derived feature of this clade, and terrestrial behavior and morphology in the Tetanocerini are largely derived from aquatic ancestry.
Although strains ATCC 25017 and TX07-7308 were isolated in different parts of the USA, both were associated with aquatic environments and their recent common ancestry was evident from genome comparisons.
There are many examples for which overall structural similarity results from functional or environmental constraints rather than shared ancestry: webbing between digits in aquatic organisms, cross-sectional proportions of wings in flying animals, modifications of leaves in cold and/or dry environments.
If Tethytheria is monophyletic, this adaptive pattern is best explained as having been due to common ancestry, whereas if the group is paraphyletic, semi-aquatic habitus either evolved convergently in early proboscideans and sirenians, or was an ancestral feature of Paenungulata as a whole.
Rather than trying to find the actual fossil corresponding to the "missing link" between lobe-fins and tetrapods, paleontologists instead look for fossils with characters or features important for an adaptive transition from life in an aquatic environment to life on land and that are shared as the result of common ancestry.
