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- Current: Sep 26, 2022
Analogous
Semantically “analogous” means “similar to something else” either generally or in some specific detail.
In biology, “analogous” is often used to represent the superficial similarity in morphology between body structures that do not share a common ancestoral structure. For example, the wings of birds are analogous to those of insects, but these structures evolved separately in each lineage. The wings of birds are homologous to legs of terrestrial animals.
Bones in the same color are homologous to each other although they are not very similar in morphology.
Definitions in the literature
- analogous structure: structures that have similar functions and superficially similar appearance from one another but very different anatomies, such as the wings of insects and birds. The similarities are the result of similar environmental pressures rather than a common ancestry [1].
- analogous structure: Similar body structures that evolved separately in different lineages (by morphological convergence) [2].
