MONSTERS

9Aa AND MYTH

The bones in photo A are from a terrible fire-
breathing dragon that roamed southern Poland
long ago. The creature was slain by Krak, a
shoemaker’s apprentice who later became king.
The city of Krakow was built in his honour.
The bones are obviously not from a dragon.
They are probably from a whale and a mammoth.
Myths often originate from people finding the bones
of extinct creatures, which they cannot explain.
The idea of one-eyed giants (Cyclops) from Ancient
Greek mythology probably came from the discovery
of mammoth or elephant skulls, which have a large

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central hole for the animal’s trunk. A | These ‘dragon bones’ hang outside Krakow cathedral.

In 1676, Robert Plot (a university professor) was given

part of an enormous thighbone. He concluded that
it was from a giant human. It was actually a dinosaur
bone but no one knew about dinosaurs at the time.
Later, William Buckland (1784–1856) carefully
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studied a set of huge bones. In a scientific paper
published in 1824, he hypothesised that the bones
came from a large extinct reptile. Its species name
is now Megalosaurus bucklandii, in his honour, and
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it was the first dinosaur described in a science

journal. However, many scientists at the time were
B | an elephant skull
not convinced by Buckland’s hypothesis because he
was quite eccentric. His hobby was eating strange
things and ‘mouse on toast’ was a favourite. a | What does ‘extinct’ mean?
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b | Suggest a way in which extinction
C | a model of Megalosaurus bucklandii and a human happens.

2 a | What variation is there between

the two species in photo C?
b | How can variation be caused?
Give two ways.

3 What is a species?

4 What genus is Buckland’s dinosaur in?

5 DNA is a substance found in cells.

Where in the cell is it found?

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 ENVIRONMENTAL
9Aa VARIATION
WHAT CAUSES ENVIRONMENTAL VARIATION?

The monster pumpkin in photo A did not get

that big by chance. The plant was carefully
looked after and given all the resources it
needed, including additional light, water,
warmth and mineral salts.
An organism’s surroundings are its
environment. In all environments there are
environmental factors that can change the
organism, including other organisms and

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non-living factors such as temperature or A | This pumpkin had to be moved to a festival by the army. It
the amount of light. These non-living factors was grown in Lymington, Hampshire and had a mass of 371.5 kg.
are called physical environmental factors.

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Suggest what physical environmental factors
allowed the pumpkin in photo A to grow so big. In 2008, some Japanese cherry
tree seeds spent 6 months in
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2 a | Describe two physical environmental factors
in your environment at the moment. space. When planted back on
Earth the trees flowered 6 years
b | Apart from physical factors, what other early. Scientists are still trying to
environmental factors are in your environment? work out why.
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The features of an organism are its characteristics.

The differences between the characteristics of organisms
are known as variation. Environmental variation is
variation caused by an organism’s environment. 3 a | Describe the environmental
variation shown in photos B,
In humans, examples of environmental variation include C and D.
scars and hairstyles. Scars are made by physical
environmental factors, such as fire or sharp objects. b | Suggest what environmental
factor has caused the variation
Hairstyles follow fashion, which is an environmental
in each case.
factor caused by other people in your environment.

B C D

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L Continuous and
discontinuous
Pumpkins, such as the one shown in photo
A, can have a large spread of different sizes,
from very small to enormous, and everything
in between. Variation that can have any value
between two points is continuous variation.
Variation that can only have a value from a limited
set of possible values is discontinuous variation.

4 a | Identify three types of environmental

variation in photo E.

b | State whether each type of variation you

identified is continuous or discontinuous,
explaining your reasoning.

Explain whether each example of E | Hair length shows continuous variation but

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variation in photos B, C and D is having piercings is discontinuous (you cannot have
continuous or discontinuous. half a piercing).

Classification
Classification is sorting organisms into groups. The
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smallest group an organism is classified into is its species.
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Members of the same species can reproduce with one
another and their offspring will also be able to reproduce.
Sometimes environmental variation makes classification
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difficult. In 2003 some ancient human bones were

discovered on Flores Island in Indonesia. The bones were
from adults who were just over 1 m tall − much shorter than
human adults today. Some scientists think that the bones
were from our own species of human but that a shortage of
a mineral called iodine in the diet meant that the people did
not grow very tall. Other scientists think that these people
were from a different species, which is now extinct.

6 A plant growing on a seashore has pink flowers at
the top of a stem, which has pairs of oval leaves
along its 10 cm length. On a nearby island there
are similar plants but they are over 50 cm tall and
have dark purple flowers. Scientists took seeds
from plants in both areas and grew them in the
laboratory. They all grew to look the same.
a | What does this tell you about the plants from the
two areas?
b | Use this example to explain how environmental
variation can make it difficult to identify plant
species.
F | Professor Mike Morwood explaining why
he thinks the Flores Island people were from
a different species.
I can …
■ identify different types of environmental
variation and explain their causes
■ explain how environmental variation can
cause problems with classification.
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