Homologous Species
The two species that possesive the homologous traits are cats and whales. Cats have four legs with a similar bone structure to humans as well as the similar bone structure to the fin of the marine animal, whale. The structure of the fin and leg are the same, but as you can see in the image above, the whale has a wider humerus, ulna, radius, and carpals, and has longer phalanges. Although their structures are the same, their functions are different. Cats use their hands in order to be mobile on land and their paws allow “ act as shock absorbers for jump-landings” , while whales use their fins to stabilize themselves so that they do not roll around in the water ("Structure and Function of the Claw and Foot Pad in Cats" 2015). The common ancestor for both whales and cats, along with humans and bats, is the placental mammals, which “weighed between 6 and 245 grams,” and lived about “1 00 million years ago,” right after the dinosaurs became extinct (Wong "Mee...