homoplasy

American  

[huh-mop-luh-see, hoh-muh-plas-ee, -pley-see, hom-uh-] / həˈmɒp lə si, ˈhoʊ məˌplæs i, -ˌpleɪ si, ˈhɒm ə- /

noun

Biology.

1. correspondence in form or structure, owing to a similar environment.

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Other Word Forms

• homoplastic adjective

Etymology

Origin of homoplasy

First recorded in 1865–70; homo- + -plasy

Example Sentences

This is called homoplasy, and in an evolutionary diagram it can make two distantly-related animals seem like close relatives if they happened to evolve similar traits.

From Scientific American

Additionally, we used the R package HybridCheck77 and pairwise homoplasy index testing78 to identify sites of recombination.

From Nature

The true tree is, however, unknown, and all data, including nuclear genes, show homoplasy.

From Science Magazine

This conclusion relies on phylogenetic analyses that fail to discriminate between homology and homoplasy and further implies virus-like rates of nucleotide substitution in early Paleocene placentals.

From Science Magazine

One of the most important factors to consider is known among evolutionary scholars as homoplasy, or convergent evolution amongst unrelated lineages.

From Scientific American