MISSION 4 — Cone Rangers
Before Pangaea, there was Gondwana. Gondwana was a massive continent made up of what are today Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Antarctica, Australia, India, Madagascar, and South America. Gondwana eventually joined up with another ancient continent, Laurasia, to form Pangaea about 300 million years ago.
Pangaea broke up for good about 175 million years ago and, eventually, so did Gondwana. As Gondwana’s landmasses broke away from one another, they carried with them a set of organisms that would face changing conditions as the plates moved across Earth’s surface. Could this movement be a key to why similar species live thousands of miles apart? Play the level to find out.
Play "Cone rangers" and answer questions 9–12 after you've completed the level.
9. Complete the table below—called a character matrix—for all the species in this level. Place an "x" if the species has the trait and leave it blank if it does not. In the final column, use the species tabs in the level to write the location of each species.
10. The pop-up question at the end of the level says that DNA testing led to the discovery that a tree in South America is genetically similar to one in Australia. In fact, these two trees are more closely related to each other than either one is to any other tree in this level—even trees that are found much closer. Which two trees are they talking about?
11. What does finding A. fibrosa on modern-day Antarctica suggest about that continent’s past climate?
12. Why did A. fibrosa likely go extinct?
