LowRepresentative291 t1_iy7e36x wrote
Reply to comment by knowledge3754 in Eli5: Why do birds and fish come in such a spectacular variety of colors and shapes compared to other animals? by thetravelman888
All life started in the water. Imagine at some point two species of fish diverged from a common ancestor, species X and species Y. Both became ancestors to many subsequent species. Some descendant species of X (irl: lobe finned fish) eventually came to land, and that's where we descent from. Now, thousands of modern fish species have evolved from species X, and thousands have from species Y. A far descendant from species X might look morphologically similar to a species that evolved from Y (they are both "fish") but it shares a closer common ancestor with humans.
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