Question

A scientist finds a new organism that may be either a bird or a bat, but it is not clear which group it belongs to. He is pretty sure that the organism has analogous structures with bats and homologous structures with birds, as suggested by genomic data. The organism has one trait that is shared with bats but not birds. Which group should he choose for the new organism and why?

Answer 1

The new organism should be placed with the bird group based upon the homology obtained by the genomic data. This would imply a shared common ancestor. The trait shared with bats but not birds could be an analogous trait.