I

Introduction

Through the course time, the world has greatly changed, and all forms of life together with it. In order to
survive and successfully reproduce, the earliest forms of organisms had to adapt to their changing environment,
thereby modifying and altering themselves that it has become almost unbelievable that they came from the same
ancestor millions of years ago.
However, through taxonomy and systematics, the mystery of our diversity is better explained. Taxonomy is
defined as the description of species and the classification of organisms into groups that reflect evolutionary
relationships (Miller and Harley, 2007) On the other hand; systematics is the study and classification of organisms with
the goal of reconstructing their evolutionary history (http://dictionary.reference.com).
Their application is exemplified with the use of caminalcules, a fictive or imaginary group of animal-like forms
invented by the late Prof. Joseph H. Camin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Kansas. The concept
involved is actually easy to understand. What Camin did was invent 29 recent "species" and 48 fossil "species" of
caminalcules although most people use a dataset today of 14 living and 57 fossil specimens. The earliest fossil
caminalcule was seen as the ancestor of all subsequent forms which evolved through a multi-branched evolutionary
tree (with some lineages becoming extinct and/or skipping time or year etc.).
In this exercise, the students should be able to improve their ability when it comes to constructing a
phylogenetic tree and classifying organisms into taxonomic categories as it gives a clue how and why organisms
evolve. It is important for students to understand the rules of classification and the concept of evolutionary change to
be able to have a better view of the past (Gendron; 2000), for we will never understand the present without searching
the past.
II

Materials and Methods

This exercise had no need for experimentation so no scientific instruments were needed, only writing
materials such as pencils, markers, rulers, scissors and a cartolina of any color. The exercise was divided into three
parts. The first was the taxonomic classification of living caminalcules where the students created a hierarchical
classification of the fourteen living species of the caminalcules. Here, the students had to decide which species belong
in the same genus and combine these genera into families, families into orders and orders into classes. On the
second part of the exercise, the students had to construct a phylogenetic tree based on their examination of the 14
living species of the caminalcules by deciding which species share a common ancestor not shared by the others. And
on the last part of the exercise, using the white cartolina of the group, the students constructed a phylogenetic tree for
both the living and ancestral caminalcules by cutting and pasting them on 20 horizontal lines drawn on a cartolina
(properly labeled as instructed in the protocol). The horizontal lines are numbered based accordingly to the ages of the
given species.
Reference:
Miller, S. and Harley,J. 2007. Zoology 7th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill
Gendron, R. 2000. The Classification and Evolution of Caminalcules.The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 2: 570
On the Cutting Edge: Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty. Caminalcule Phylogenetic Exercise.
Teaching Paleontology in the 21st Century.

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