Final answer:
Developmental anatomy studies organism growth through its entire life, while embryology focuses on development from fertilization to adult form, often showing similarities among species during early stages.
Step-by-step explanation:
Differences between Developmental Anatomy and Embryology
The key difference between developmental anatomy and embryology lies in their scopes and what they focus on during the growth process of an organism.
Developmental anatomy is a broader field that investigates the formation and growth of organisms throughout their entire life span, including both embryonic and postnatal development.
In contrast, embryology specifically examines the development of the anatomy of an organism from the fertilization stage to its adult form.
It sheds light on how mutational changes in embryos can lead to significant differences in adult forms while conserving embryonic similarities among related species.
Embryology is particularly insightful in demonstrating the relatedness between diverse groups of organisms, showcasing how certain structures such as gill slits and tail formations appear during embryonic stages but may disappear in adulthood, as in the case of vertebrates including humans.
For example, during embryonic development, all vertebrates exhibit gill slits and tails at some point, which are retained by aquatic species like fish and some amphibians in their adult form, but disappear in terrestrial species including humans.
This phenomenon underlines the concept of comparative embryology, which compares the embryos of different species to provide evidence for common ancestry.
Furthermore, the study of embryology is crucial for understanding the processes such as gastrulation, neurulation, and organogenesis, which all play significant roles in the transformation from an embryo to a fully developed fetus and eventually to a newborn capable of surviving independently.