Vocabulary Word
Word: progenitor
Definition: ancestor
Definition: ancestor
Sentences Containing 'progenitor'
Frantic work of art on the wall pious motto, done on the premises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in faded grasses: progenitor of the`God Bless Our Home'of modern commerce.
As in each fully stocked country natural selection necessarily acts by the selected form having some advantage in the struggle for life over other forms, there will be a constant tendency in the improved descendants of any one species to supplant and exterminate in each stage of descent their predecessors and their original progenitor.
If, however, the modified offspring of a species get into some distinct country, or become quickly adapted to some quite new station, in which offspring and progenitor do not come into competition, both may continue to exist.
In our diagram this is indicated by the broken lines beneath the capital letters, converging in sub-branches downwards towards a single point; this point represents a species, the supposed progenitor of our several new sub-genera and genera.
We may believe that the progenitor of the ostrich genus had habits like those of the bustard, and that, as the size and weight of its body were increased during successive generations, its legs were used more and its wings less, until they became incapable of flight.
When a part has been developed in an extraordinary manner in any one species, compared with the other species of the same genus, we may conclude that this part has undergone an extraordinary amount of modification since the period when the several species branched off from the common progenitor of the genus.
This relation has a clear meaning on my view: I look at all the species of the same genus as having as certainly descended from the same progenitor, as have the two sexes of any one species.
In a breed which has not been crossed, but in which BOTH parents have lost some character which their progenitor possessed, the tendency, whether strong or weak, to reproduce the lost character might, as was formerly remarked, for all that we can see to the contrary, be transmitted for almost any number of generations.
So that, if the electric organs had been inherited from some one ancient progenitor, we might have expected that all electric fishes would have been specially related to each other; but this is far from the case.
Consequently there is no reason to suppose that they have been inherited from a common progenitor; for had this been the case they would have closely resembled each other in all respects.
But as the vast majority of the species in the above two families, as well as most other crustaceans, are aquatic in their habits, it is improbable in the highest degree that their common progenitor should have been adapted for breathing air.
But webbed feet no doubt were as useful to the progenitor of the upland goose and of the frigate-bird, as they now are to the most aquatic of living birds.
So we may believe that the progenitor of the seal did not possess a flipper, but a foot with five toes fitted for walking or grasping; and we may further venture to believe that the several bones in the limbs of the monkey, horse and bat, were originally developed, on the principle of utility, probably through the reduction of more numerous bones in the fin of some ancient fish-like progenitor of the whole class.
Now let us suppose that the ancient progenitor of our European cuckoo had the habits of the American cuckoo, and that she occasionally laid an egg in another bird's nest.
But this is a wholly false view; we should always look for forms intermediate between each species and a common but unknown progenitor; and the progenitor will generally have differed in some respects from all its modified descendants.
Nor should it be forgotten, as before explained, that A might be the actual progenitor of B and C, and yet would not necessarily be strictly intermediate between them in all respects.
For the development by this means of a group of forms, all of which are descended from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long before their modified descendants.
Most of the arguments which have convinced me that all the existing species of the same group are descended from a single progenitor, apply with equal force to the earliest known species.
For all the species of the same group, however long it may have lasted, are the modified descendants one from the other, and all from a common progenitor.
On the principle of the continued tendency to divergence of character, which was formerly illustrated by this diagram, the more recent any form is the more it will generally differ from its ancient progenitor.
As these are formed, the species of the less vigorous groups, from their inferiority inherited from a common progenitor, tend to become extinct together, and to leave no modified offspring on the face of the earth.
So that we here have many species descended from a single progenitor grouped into genera; and the genera into subfamilies, families and orders, all under one great class.
As these points of affinity are believed to be real and not merely adaptive, they must be due in accordance with our view to inheritance from a common progenitor.
On either view we must suppose that the bizcacha has retained, by inheritance, more of the character of its ancient progenitor than have other Rodents; and therefore it will not be specially related to any one existing Marsupial, but indirectly to all or nearly all Marsupials, from having partially retained the character of their common progenitor, or of some early member of the group.
It must suffice for our purpose to bear in mind that an indefinite repetition of the same part or organ is the common characteristic, as Owen has remarked, of all low or little specialised forms; therefore the unknown progenitor of the Vertebrata probably possessed many vertebrae; the unknown progenitor of the Articulata, many segments; and the unknown progenitor of flowering plants, many leaves arranged in one or more spires.
He proposes to call the structures which resemble each other in distinct animals, owing to their descent from a common progenitor with subsequent modification, "homogenous"; and the resemblances which cannot thus be accounted for, he proposes to call "homoplastic".
For instance, he believes that the hearts of birds and mammals are as a whole homogenous--that is, have been derived from a common progenitor; but that the four cavities of the heart in the two classes are homoplastic--that is, have been independently developed.
Embryology rises greatly in interest, when we look at the embryo as a picture, more or less obscured, of the progenitor, either in its adult or larval state, of all the members of the same great class.
How simply is this fact explained if we believe that these species are all descended from a striped progenitor, in the same manner as the several domestic breeds of the pigeon are descended from the blue and barred rock-pigeon!
Ilā is considered the chief progenitor of the Lunar Dynasty (Chandravamsha or Somavamsha) of Indian kings - also known as the Ailas ("descendants of Ilā").
According to the "Linga Purana" and the "Mahabharata", Ilā was born as the eldest daughter of Vaivasvata Manu, the progenitor of mankind, and his wife Shraddha.
Ila is considered the chief progenitor of the Lunar Dynasty through Pururavas and of the Solar Dynasty through his brother Iksavaku and sons Utkala, Gaya, and Vinatashva.
The progenitor of the Clan Leslie is claimed to be a man named "Bartolf" who was a nobleman from Hungary, who came to Scotland in 1067.
He is a progenitor of docufiction and ethnographic film (ethnofiction).
It arises when cerebellar granule neurone progenitor (GNP) cells fail to properly migrate and differentiate.
He is descended from a long line of American ancestors of English descent, the first American progenitor of which was one George Tucker of County Kent, England, who emigrated to Bermuda about the year 1619.
De Aragón had always known of Padre Martinez as the founder of New Mexico’s first newspaper, as a major progenitor of bilingual education in the U.S., and as a humanitarian of the poor and orphans.
He also becomes a progenitor of Hwang in Korea.
He was the first documented case of vampirism and is most likely the progenitor of all vampires.
His fourth son Francis was progenitor of the Gore-Booth Baronets.
Patriarch Hayk, the legendary and eponymous progenitor of the Armenian people, is sometimes referred to as "azgapet".
According to tradition the progenitor of the clan was "Abraruadh" who was the Abbot of Glen Dochart and Strathearn.
The Njuup tradition is the progenitor of Mbalax and for a long part of its history has remained within the confines of the "Ndut".
Archival Hubble and Spitzer images of NGC 3184 seem to show no progenitor for optical transient SN 2010dn.
He is known today as the progenitor of the Babenberg dynasty in Austria.
Although Leopold is not mentioned in the "Babenberger Chronicle" written by his descendant Otto of Freising—which only starts with Leopold's grandson Adalbert—he is known today as the progenitor of the Babenberg dynasty.
Ali Yamani is considered to be the progenitor of the Paracha tribe of Pakistan.
The text presents itself as a discourse given by Manu, the progenitor of mankind to a group of seers, or rishis, who beseech him to tell them the "law of all the social classes" (1.2).
In this way, Adam as our great progenitor, will preside over the human family as "father and God."
Currently, researchers understand that PKC-α is correlated with the differentiation of erythroid progenitor cells in bone marrow.