Jackie - do you use "adaption" or "adaptation"? I'm guessing the former.

Having studied biology for three years at Uni - much of which dealt with phyllogeny - this facet of evolution received plenty of air time.

FYI, Sydney Uni has three terms instead of the more common two semesters (well it did in the 70's anyway). If we used "adaption" in essays written in the second and third terms (the first term was a grace period) there was an automatic penalty of 5%. Our UK educated lecturers insisted the word was adaptation.

For this reason alone I use "orientate" - but am happy to change if there is an English English reason to do so.

stales