1. Bats and Birds:
- Bats and birds are both vertebrates belonging to the phylum Chordata.
- They share common anatomical features such as a backbone, a skull, and paired appendages.
- Bats and birds have evolved independently from a common ancestor, likely a reptile-like creature that existed over 300 million years ago.
- Both groups share several characteristics like warm-bloodedness (endothermy), the presence of hair/feathers, and specialized respiratory systems (lungs in bats, complex lungs with air sacs in birds) that support their high metabolic rates and sustained flight.
2. Dragonflies:
- Dragonflies belong to the insect class Insecta, while bats and birds are vertebrates.
- Dragonflies and bats are not closely related in evolutionary terms. Bats and birds share more recent common ancestry with each other than they do with dragonflies.
Here's a simplified representation of their evolutionary relationships:
```
Domain: Eukaryota
|
+-- Kingdom: Animalia
|
+-- Phylum: Chordata
|
+-- Class: Mammalia
|
+-- Order: Chiroptera (bats)
+-- Class: Aves (birds)
+-- Phylum: Arthropoda
|
+-- Class: Insecta
|
+-- Order: Odonata (dragonflies)
```
This representation highlights that bats and birds share a more recent common ancestor within the phylum Chordata compared to dragonflies, which belong to a different phylum (Arthropoda).