clades
Ancestor and descendants
Clades are groups of organisms that include an ancestor and all its descendants—a complete branch of the evolutionary tree.
The term comes from biology's effort to classify life by shared ancestry rather than superficial similarity.
A clade can be as broad as all vertebrates or as narrow as the great apes.
Birds are a clade within dinosaurs, which is why scientists say dinosaurs never went extinct.
From one ancestral lineage
- cladisticsClassification by common descent
- common ancestorOrigin point of descendants
- branchingSplitting into separate directions
- nodeConnection point in networks
Formation of distinct species
- divergenceSeparation from common origin
- common descentAll organisms share forebears
- natural selectionDifferential reproductive success
- genetic driftRandom allele frequency change
convergent evolution · evolutionary tree · extinction · survival · radiation
Range of life forms
- endemismGeographic species restriction
- faunaAnimal life collectively
- floraPlants of a region
- vertebratesAnimals with internal skeletons
invertebrates · tetrapods · dinosaurs · mammals · archosaurs · primates · angiosperms · gymnosperms
monophyletic
From one ancestral lineage
- cladisticsClassification by common descent
- common ancestorOrigin point of descendants
- branchingSplitting into separate directions
speciation
Formation of distinct species
- divergenceSeparation from common origin
- common descentAll organisms share forebears
- natural selectionDifferential reproductive success
genetic drift · convergent evolution · evolutionary tree · extinction · survival · radiation
biodiversity
Range of life forms
vertebrates · invertebrates · tetrapods · dinosaurs · mammals · archosaurs · primates · angiosperms · gymnosperms · arthropods
classification
Systematic grouping by traits
- systematicsScience of classifying organisms
- nomenclatureSystem of specialized terms
- taxaClassification categories
rank · genus · species · family · order · class · phylum · kingdom · domain · binomial
- phylogeneticsphylogeny, phylogenetics, cladistics, tree of life, common ancestor
- reptileslizard, snake, turtle, crocodile, alligator
- taxonomygenus, species, taxon, kingdom, phylum
- nomenclaturescientific names, taxonomy, taxa, genus, species