Acertain segment of dna can be used as a molecular clock. its rate of mutation is one mutation per 10 million years. examine the dna segments from two different species: species a: cttaagctagtaaggacc species b: cataagttagtaaggtcc using this example, explain how this information can be used to determine how long ago these two species shared a common ancestor. be sure to answer this question in paragraph form using complete sentences.

Since this is a relatively short string of DNA, we can count the number of mutations between the two strings. Firstly, Species A has thymine as the 2nd nucleotide, while Species B has adenine.2. Second, the 7th nucleotide of A has cytosine while B has thymine. Finally, the 16th nucleotide (3rd from the last) of A has adenine while B has thymine.
Since there are 3 point mutations, we multiply this by the frequency of 10 million years per mutation to get a time of 30 million years.