What does the phrase ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny?

The phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 and for many decades was accepted as natural law. Haeckel meant it in the strict sense: that an organism, in the course of its development, goes through all the stages of those forms of life from which it has evolved.

Who gave the statement ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny?

Haeckel
Haeckel formulated his theory as “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”. The notion later became simply known as the recapitulation theory. Ontogeny is the growth (size change) and development (structure change) of an individual organism; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species.

What do you mean by recapitulation theory?

1. the hypothesis that the stages of embryological development of an organism mirror the morphological stages of evolutionary development characteristic of the species; that is, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

How does ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny related to evolution?

More than just a catchy phrase, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” is the foundation of recapitulation theory. Recapitulation theory posits that the development of individual organisms (ontogeny) follows (recapitulates) the same phases of the evolution of larger ancestral groups of related organisms (phylogeny).

What are molecular phylogenies based on?

Molecular phylogeny is a relatively new scientific discipline that involves the comparative analysis of the nucleotide sequences of genes and the amino acid sequences and structural features of proteins from which evolutionary histories and relationships, and in some cases also functions, can be inferred.

What is known as biogenetic law?

biogenetic law, also called Recapitulation Theory, postulation, by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny—i.e., the development of the animal embryo and young traces the evolutionary development of the species.