Evolutionary clock - Nonconstancy of rate in different species.

By using various methods for comparing polypeptide sequences we find that the evolutionary divergence of rattlesnake cytochrome c from cytochromes c of species in other classes has been more rapid than that of cytochrome c of another reptile, the snapping turtle. This suggests that the evolutionary rate of change of cytochromes c is species-dependent as well as time-dependent.