The marsupial Tasmanian "wolf" (Thylacinus) resembles its placental counterpart, the wolf (Canis) in appearance, though they are completely different species. What does this phenomenon exhibit?

Question

anonymous · Answer

common ancestor

anonymous · Answer

@dannyp they did share a common ancestor, but WAY in the based. It's called convergent evolution. Another example would the the squirrels of North America and Austrialia. The NA squirrels are amnions (have placentas) while the ones in Aussie are marsupials. They diverged mainly because of geographic isolation.