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Monophyletic Organisms

Pain in the Aster

Aster is an example of a former genus which has ballooned into one of the largest families of plants. What was once a large, monophyletic genus named Aster has been split into multiple genera like Symphyotrichum, Eurybia, Almutaster, and others because “Aster” as originally conceived was polyphyletic, containing species that didn’t all come from a single common ancestor.

Rattle Battle

As another example, Rattlesnakes were once thought to be closely related solely based on the mere presence of a rattle. However, molecular and morphological data have shown that rattles evolved independently in different lineages. As a result, the rattlesnakes we think of today belong to a monophyletic genus Crotalus, and the “rattling” characteristic is now understood to have evolved in a more complex manner across different lineages.

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