Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to a group of taxa that includes the common ancestor of all the members but not all descendants of that ancestor.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective systematics Said of a defined group
constrained within aclade without including alldescendants of the most commonancestor .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The genus Calidris is paraphyletic, meaning that the birds in this group resemble each other closely despite not being close relatives - a stunning example of convergent evolution that anyone can see for themselves whilst walking along the beaches.
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As already mentioned, the old Linnaean classification "Reptiles" is paraphyletic.
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The old Linnaean classification "Reptiles" is paraphyletic.
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The old Linnaean classification "Reptiles" is paraphyletic.
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E.g. a fondness for Linnaean taxonomy in paleontology leads pretty rapidly to an acceptance of paraphyletic groups based on overall similarity, which then requires one to subjectively delineate the paraphyletic groups based on some fairly arbitrary “it looks like a pretty big difference to me” criterion.
Creationist vs. creationist on Homo habilis - The Panda's Thumb 2010
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E.g. evolutionary systematists prefer or accept overall similarity, ranked Linnaean taxonomy, gestalt/expertise recognition of ranks, paraphyletic groups, and treat species as a another, particularly real rank.
Creationist vs. creationist on Homo habilis - The Panda's Thumb 2010
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Well, if the Pterodacytls are considered a separate group then Pterosaurs are apparently already paraphyletic.
Darwinopterus and mosaic, modular evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2009
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Lumping it with the latter would give a paraphyletic group.
Darwinopterus and mosaic, modular evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2009
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Lumping it with the latter would give a paraphyletic group.
Darwinopterus and mosaic, modular evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2009
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Well, if the Pterodacytls are considered a separate group then Pterosaurs are apparently already paraphyletic.
Darwinopterus and mosaic, modular evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2009
treeseed commented on the word paraphyletic
In phylogenetics, a group of organisms is said to be paraphyletic (Greek para = near and phyle = race) if the group contains its most recent common ancestor, but does not contain all the descendants of that ancestor.
_Wikipedia
February 19, 2008
1541993697 commented on the word paraphyletic
The concept "paraphyletic" terms everything except the cladistic confusion of "now" and "then", that is, everything EXCEPT the inconsistent cladistic belief that history can be described unambiguously. It thus terms everything that is not cladistic, that is, everything that does not rest on cladistics' erroneous axiom that classes are real (i.e., typology). It is a generic term for what the ancient Greeks called "barbarians" in their differentiation of "Greeks" and "barbarians" (thus also including aryans in their version of cladistics). It terms a generic denial of everything except cladistics, especially of objectivity (which empirical science rests on). It does, fundamentally, represent a claim that all achievements of empirical science, including Einstein's theory of the relativity of time, is wrong ("unnatural") - that empirical science has got everything up-side-down. It actually represents a revolution against empirical science (i.e., objectivity) resting on the erroneous axiom that classes are real. It is thus, fundamentally, a typological concept of "non-cladistic". Accepting it thus turns you into a cladist. (Fact is that both "para"- and "holophyletic" are "monophyletic" (per definition), and that we have no practical possibility to tell them apart. The cladistic distinction of them can never become anything else than a brain-ghost).
May 1, 2011