related species
Taxonomically linked organisms
Related species are organisms that share a common ancestor, grouped together based on evolutionary lineage.
The term appears most often in biology and conservation: The endangered wolf has several related species in North America.
How closely related depends on how recently lineages diverged—sister species share a recent ancestor, while more distant relatives branched off further back in evolutionary time.
- kinBlood-connected people
- lineageDescent from progenitors
- genusTaxonomic rank above species
- familyRelated people together
- family treeChart of ancestors
clade · ancestor · descendant · offspring · missing link · hybrid · subspecies · variant · strain · evolutionary · phylogeny · branching · divergent · convergent · common ancestor · shared ancestry · fossil record · tree of life