Question

Why were fossils important to Darwin's theory of evolution?

Answer 1

In his most famous book, On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin almost didn’t mention the fossils that he discovered in South America, apart from a brief reference in the introduction: “WHEN on board HMS ‘Beagle,’ as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species-that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers.”