Author's note: these pages were written some years ago. I am not planning to update them. For a more current coverage, see the link to palaeos com Palaeos website (to which many links on these pages point to anyway. More info here


The Monophyletic Taxon

 
monophyletic taxon

graphic © Darren Abbey


 
 
The Monophyletic taxon, also called a clade, is the building block of the cladistic system of taxonomy.  It refers to any group of organisms that includes the most recent common ancestor of all those organisms and all the descendants of that common ancestor.
 

Examples:  link to palaeos com Insects, link to palaeos com Vertebrates, link to palaeos com Mammalia, Angiosperms, , etc.
 
 

graphic (above) from UCMP
 
 
 

Polyphyletic taxon
Paraphyletic taxon
Monophyletic taxon
 
 

 
to Systematics
Systematics page



page history

page uploaded 13 November 1998
modified 28 November
and again 18 December