Crossword Puzzle for Early Theories of Evolution

Across

2. A group of islands in the Eastern Pacific Ocean that have plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. It was there that Charles Darwin began to really comprehend what causes evolution to occur.
6. A Central European monk who carried out plant breeding experiments between 1856 and 1863. He discovered that there is a recombination of parental traits in offspring.
10. An 18th century Swedish botanist who developed a system for classifying all living things. This system, which is named after him, is still in use today by the biological sciences.
11. In 1858, he sent Charles Darwin a draft of an essay he had written on natural selection. This pressured Darwin to quickly finish his own book on natural selection.
12. A 17th century archbishop of Armagh Ireland who calculated that the earth began on Monday, October 23, 4004 B.C.
13. An 18th century French Scientist who said that living things change through time and that the earth must be much older than 6000 years. He hid his views in a 44 volume natural history book series.
14. He wrote "Essay on the Principles of Population." This said that human populations will double every 25 years unless they are kept in check by limits in food supply.
15. A term for the largest natural population of organisms that can potentially interbreed to produce fertile offspring.
16. The theory that living things were divinely created and exist in an infinite and continuous series of forms, each one grading into the next, from simple to complex. (Hint: you are looking for four words)

Down

1. He believed that evolution is due to the "inheritance of acquired characteristics."
2. A group of closely related species. The category immediately above species.
3. He was a strong advocate of
uniformitarianism and an opponent of catastrophism. His 3 volume geology textbook was important in helping Charles Darwin develop his ideas about evolution.
4. The process by which one species evolves into two or more species. It occurs as a result of different populations becoming reproductively isolated from each other, usually by adapting to different environments. (Hint: you are looking for two words)
5. The evolutionary process primarily responsible for the change over generations in wing and body coloration of "peppered" moths living near English industrial cities during the 19th and 20th centuries. (Hint: you are looking for two words)
7. The theory that the earth’s surface is the result of violent and sudden natural catastrophes such as great floods rather than gradual changes.
8. Genetic change in a population or species of organisms that occurs over time.
9. He wrote "On The Origin of Species."
13. The convention established by Linnaeus whereby genus and species names are used to classify species. (Hint: the term that you are looking for means “two names” in Latin.)


Copyright © 2005 by Dennis O'Neil. All rights reserved.