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Quiz Evolution & Darwinism: natural selection, Galapagos, modern synthesis

Test your knowledge on evolution: Darwin's Galapagos finches, natural selection, fossils and the modern synthesis. Eleven verified questions with explainers.

12 questions~6 minen
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In what year did Darwin publish 'On the Origin of Species'?

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  1. Q1. In what year did Darwin publish 'On the Origin of Species'?

    • 1831
    • 1859
    • 1871
    • 1905
    Charles Darwin published 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection' on 24 November 1859. The first print run of 1,250 copies sold out the same day.

  2. Q2. Which ship carried Darwin on his five-year voyage of observation?

    • HMS Endeavour
    • HMS Beagle
    • HMS Victory
    • HMS Challenger
    Darwin sailed on HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836 under Captain FitzRoy. The Galapagos stop in 1835 inspired his thinking on adaptation through differences in finch beaks and tortoises.

  3. Q3. Which naturalist independently arrived at natural selection, prompting Darwin to publish?

    • Thomas Huxley
    • Alfred Russel Wallace
    • Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
    • Ernst Mayr
    Alfred Russel Wallace sent Darwin an essay from Indonesia in 1858 outlining natural selection. Their joint paper was read at the Linnean Society that July, ahead of Darwin's book in 1859.

  4. Q4. What is the term for differences in beak shape among Galapagos finches?

    • Convergent evolution
    • Adaptive radiation
    • Genetic drift
    • Punctuated equilibrium
    Adaptive radiation describes one ancestral species diversifying into many forms exploiting different niches. Darwin's 13–18 finch species evolved varied beaks for seeds, insects or cactus flowers.

  5. Q5. Which 19th-century theory of inheritance did Darwin's selection theory eventually replace?

    • Mendelian genetics
    • Lamarck's inheritance of acquired characteristics
    • Punctuated equilibrium
    • Epigenetics
    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1809) proposed that traits acquired during life — like a giraffe stretching its neck — could be inherited. Selection on heritable variation later disproved this mechanism.

  6. Q6. What is the 'modern synthesis' in evolutionary biology?

    • The fusion of Darwinian selection with Mendelian genetics
    • A merger of evolution and intelligent design
    • Combining ecology with embryology
    • The discovery of mitochondrial DNA
    Coined by Julian Huxley in 1942, the modern synthesis united natural selection with Mendelian and population genetics. Key contributors include Dobzhansky, Mayr, Simpson and Fisher.

  7. Q7. Which transitional fossil, found in 1861, links dinosaurs and birds?

    • Tiktaalik
    • Archaeopteryx
    • Lucy (Australopithecus)
    • Coelacanth
    Archaeopteryx, discovered in the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria in 1861, shows feathers like a bird plus teeth and a bony tail like a theropod dinosaur. It lived about 150 million years ago.

  8. Q8. What does 'fitness' mean in evolutionary biology?

    • Physical strength
    • Reproductive success relative to others
    • Lifespan in the wild
    • The ability to fight off predators
    Fitness measures how many offspring an individual leaves relative to peers. A 'fit' organism passes on more copies of its alleles — survival matters only as a means to reproduction.

  9. Q9. What is the process by which random allele frequencies change in small populations?

    • Natural selection
    • Gene flow
    • Genetic drift
    • Mutation
    Genetic drift is the random change in allele frequencies from one generation to the next, formalised by Sewall Wright in the 1930s. Its effect is strongest in small isolated populations.

  10. Q10. Which famous hominin fossil was discovered by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974?

    • Lucy
    • Turkana Boy
    • Peking Man
    • Neanderthal 1
    'Lucy' (AL 288-1) is a 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in Hadar, Ethiopia. About 40% complete, she showed clearly that bipedalism preceded a large brain.

  11. Q11. Which mechanism explains how species split into two reproductively isolated lineages?

    • Mutation
    • Speciation
    • Symbiosis
    • Migration
    Speciation occurs when populations diverge until they can no longer interbreed. Allopatric speciation (via geographic isolation) is the most common mode, e.g. ring species like Ensatina salamanders.

  12. Q12. What is the approximate age of the oldest known fossils of life on Earth?

    • 500 million years
    • 1.5 billion years
    • 3.5 billion years
    • 10 billion years
    Stromatolites and microfossils from Western Australia (Strelley Pool, Pilbara) date to roughly 3.5 billion years ago. Earth itself is about 4.54 billion years old, formed from the solar nebula.

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