Explore the evolution of fish species through protein analysis. Students perform gel electrophoresis on extracted muscle protein mixtures from 7 different types of fish. The fish protein extracts are provided ready for use.

Electrophoresis of the protein extracts creates a unique pattern of bands, called a protein fingerprint, for each fish species. Students compare the protein fingerprints from the 7 different types of fish, hypothesize on the degree of relatedness of the fish, and compare their ideas to a standard evolutionary tree of fish.