Nova Vedec Family: A Short Story

Once upon a time, in a land not very far away, there lived a little girl named Nova Vedec, who lived with her dad, Niles Vedec. Anyone who had known the Vedec’s would tell you that they were quite a remarkable family. In fact, the Vedec’s family was full of scientists, and almost every single Vedec went into a field relating to it. Niles Vedec was especially entranced with the studies of fossils, and was a Paleontologist.

It was one spring afternoon when little Nova came home from first grade and asked Niles, who was slumped over a desk covered with little reptile bones, what evolution was and who could have possibly discovered it.

Niles immediately left his work to enthusiastically hug his daughter. After such a hard day, it was so refreshing to finally be given the chance to make a scientific rant.

“Well,” he said, “The theory
Nova’s dad carefully took a small leather box from the corner of his work desk and opened the lid, showing Nova the contents. It was filled to the brim with fossils, remains of ancient organisms from the past.

“All of the creatures you see here descend from a common ancestor. In fact, we are related to them, though our relation goes back to a very very long time ago. Fossils give us evidence that species evolve. Take this shell for example. It is different from shells we see now in many ways, but there are a lot of similarities as well. The more similarities there are between creatures, the more recently they shared a common ancestor.”

“But why are these fossils so different from what we see now? Why did the animals change?”

“ Different animals spreaded across the world to different places with different food sources. Over a very long time, and through natural selection, the animals began to change to fit the needs of their habitat.”

“Thats cool! Wait… what is natural selection?!!” Asked Nova, a little