Question

"Ontogeny repeats phylogeny" was coined by

• A. Darwin
• B. Lamarck
• C. Morgan
• D. Haeckel

Answer 1

The correct option is D Haeckel

"Ontogeny repeats phylogeny" was coined by Haeckel.

"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is a catchy phrase coined by Ernst Haeckel, a 19th century German biologist and philosopher to mean that the development of an organism (ontogeny) expresses all the intermediate forms of its ancestors throughout evolution (phylogeny). His theory was later proved wrong, but the catch phrase remains.

Haeckel formulated his theory as "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". The notion later became simply known as the recapitulation theory. Ontogeny is the growth (size change) and development (shape change) of an individual organism; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species.