DARWIN'S EVOLUTION MORPHS 2009
Video animation created for the exhibition "Darwin's Evolution", originally presented at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon (2009), then at Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid (2009), Parque De Las Ciencias, Granada (2010), European Foundation Centre, Brussels (2010), Casa Andresen, Botanic Garden, Porto (2011).
Scientists have long used the skeletons of animals to study the relationships among different species.
In 1753, French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, noted the similarities between the skeletons of a human and a horse.
"Take the skeleton of a man. Tilt the pelvis, shorten the femur, legs, and arms, elongate the feet and hands, fuse the phalanges, elongate the jaws while shortening the frontal bone, and finally elongate the spine, and the skeleton will cease to represent the remains of a man and will be the skeleton of a horse."
Charles Darwin also used skeletons of living species–along with live and taxidermied specimens and fossils–as he developed his theory of natural selection.
It would appear that skeletons, then, would be a great tool for teaching evolutionary theory.