What is the adaptive significance evolutionary importance of internal fertilization and the watertight egg?

What is the adaptive significance evolutionary importance of internal fertilization and the watertight egg?

Leathery, watertight eggs. What is the adaptive significance of internal fertilization and watertight eggs? This allows reptiles to fertilize and lay eggs on land without dependence on water.

What is the advantage of a watertight egg?

Amniotic Eggs They keep the embryo moist and safe while it grows and develops. They also provide it with a rich, fatty food source (the yolk). The amniotic egg is an important adaptation in fully terrestrial vertebrates. It first evolved in reptiles.

What is the evolutionary significance of shelled or amniotic eggs?

The amniotic egg was an evolutionary invention that allowed the first reptiles to colonize dry land more than 300 million years ago. Fishes and amphibians must lay their eggs in water and therefore cannot live far from water. But thanks to the amniotic egg, reptiles can lay their eggs nearly anywhere on dry land.

What is the adaptive advantage of having a jaw?

Jaws provide a powerful adaptive advantage to vertebrates because they greatly expand the range of available food sources. They also enhance the predatory ability of vertebrates, such as sharks, that are members of this early, jawed class.

What is the importance of the amniotic egg?

The amniotic egg is the key characteristic of amniotes. In amniotes that lay eggs, the shell of the egg provides protection for the developing embryo while being permeable enough to allow for the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen.

Why is internal fertilization necessary in reptiles?

In mammals, reptiles, birds, and some types of fish the gametes meet inside of the female’s body. This is called internal fertilization. The benefit is that it provides a safer environment for fertilization. In some species, the females can even safely store the sperm until they are ready to use it.

What are the functions of an amniotic egg?

In amniotes, the shell of the egg provides protection for the developing embryo and allows water retention while still being permeable to gas exchange. Amniotic eggs contain albumin, which provides the embryo with water and protein, and an egg yolk that supplies the embryo with energy.

What adaptive advantages do jaws and fins provide for fishes?

What adaptive advantages do jaws and fins provide for fishes? animals with jaws can eat a much wider variety of food. They can also defend themselves by biting. Paired fins gave fishes more control of body movement .

Why were jaws a selective advantage?

The original selective advantage offered by the jaw was probably not related to feeding, but to increased respiration efficiency—the jaws were used in the buccal pump to pump water across the gills. Fish without jaws had more difficulty surviving than fish with jaws, and most jawless fish became extinct.

Why was the amniotic egg such an important adaptation for the transition to land?

The amnion is a critical divergence within vertebrates that allows the embryos to survive out of the water. This enabled amniotes to reproduce on land and so move into drier environments—free of the need to return to water for reproduction as amphibians.