CLADISTICS

Cladistics

Cladistics is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are grouped together based on whether or not they have one or more shared unique characteristics that come from the group's last common ancestor and are not present in more distant ancestors. Therefore, members of the same group are thought to share a common history and are considered to be more closely related.

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cladistics

Noun

  1. An approach to biological systematics in which organisms are grouped based upon synapomorphies (shared derived characteristics) only, and not upon symplesiomorphies (shared ancestral characteristics).


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: cladistics
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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