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In October 1831, the 90-foot vessel named the HMS Beagle set sail for a 5-year voyage around the world that would inspire a young Charles Darwin to transform his thinking into developing his ideas of evolution to explain biological change. Darwin’s exposure to specimens all over the globe led him to believe that they had gradually evolved from common ancestors. The concept of evolution means that species change over time and that over long, and sometimes short, periods generations of plants and animals can look very different due to genetic changes. Perhaps no one has influenced our knowledge of life on Earth as much as this English naturalist because his ideas about evolution by natural selection made us rethink our place in the world and united us with all life on our planet. “from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved” |
