Question

Archaeopteryx is an extinct beast that had feathers like a bird but teeth and a long bony tail like a reptile. Only six fossil specimens are known to exist today. Because these specimens differ greatly in size, some scientists think they are different species rather than individuals from the same species. If the specimens belong to the same species and differ in size because some are younger than others, there should be a positive linear relationship between the lengths of a pair of bones from all individuals. An outlier from this relationship would suggest a different species. Here are data on the lengths (in centimeters) of the femur (a leg bone) and the humerus (a bone in the upper arm) for the five specimens that preserve both bones: Find the correlation. Explain how your value for r matches the scatterplot below.

Answer 1

Archaeopteryx is an extinct species that had features of both reptiles and birds. The correlation coefficient, denoted as r, represents how well the lengths of the femur and humerus bones are related.

Step-by-step explanation:

Archaeopteryx is an extinct species that had features of both reptiles and birds. It had feathers like a bird but also teeth and a long bony tail like a reptile. Some scientists think that the six fossil specimens of Archaeopteryx represent different species because of their varying sizes. However, if the specimens belong to the same species, there should be a positive linear relationship between the lengths of a pair of bones from all individuals. The correlation coefficient, denoted as r, describes the strength and direction of this relationship. In this case, the value of r represents how well the lengths of the femur and humerus bones are related.