Question: How dose evelotion work

Richard Unwin answered on 13 Nov 2015:

Hi Cheese,

That’s a big question. Every time we have offspring, those offspring are not quite the same as their parents. In any generation there will be some who are stronger, better at getting food, faster, more protected from predators etc. In nature these ‘stronger’ characteristics give that animal and advantage – it is more likely to survive until it can have offspring of its own and ‘pass on’ these beneficial features. Over time, weaker traits die out and stronger ones survive and so that species ‘evolves’. This takes thousands of generations, and hundreds of thousands of years, one tiny change at a time but eventually you end up with big changes as all the small ones add up.