Thursday, April 7, 2011

Dichotomous keys of Arthopoda, Echinodermata, and fish and invertebrate chordates

Here are dichotoumous keys my Zoology 1413 class made using bubbl.us.  For purposes of making a quick flowchart during a presentation, I think bubbl.us is a better choice than flowchart.com.  I think flowchart.com is more intended for making a polished flowchart that looks just like the way you want it to look, while bubbl.us is better for a classroom acitvity.

Dichotomous keys are used mainly for identifying specimens.  They do not necessarily have to follow evolutionary history, although they often do.  In this dichotomous key, the chondrosteans and the chondrichthyans are on one branch together, even though they are not closely related among the fishes.  They both happen to share a cartilaginous skeleton, but they did not inherit that cartilaginous skeleton from a common ancestor.

3 comments: