What Teeth and Genes Reveal: teacher key

Komodo Dragons, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. Use the Komodo dragon's teeth, genes and island history to see how scientists work out how a lizard lives and changes.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What do true ampullae do for the teeth?
   • Strengthen the serrations (answer)
   • Make them orange
   • Make them longer
2. Which extinct animal was compared with the Komodo dragon in 2009?
   • A saber-toothed cat
   • Varanus priscus, called Megalania (answer)
   • A mammoth
3. What did camera traps help scientists do?
   • Count eggs
   • Measure venom
   • Test a climate model with occupancy data (answer)
4. Why would sea level changes affect genes on separate islands?
   • They joined and separated the islands over time (answer)
   • They changed the color of the lizards
   • They stopped eggs hatching
5. What does enamel mean here?
   • Tooth count
   • Tooth coating (answer)
   • Tooth length

Words

• ampullae: tooth folds
• theropod: meat-eating dinosaur
• enamel: tooth coating
• genome: all its genes