monophyletic
Americanadjective
adjective
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relating to or characterized by descent from a single ancestral group of animals or plants
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(of animals or plants) of or belonging to a single stock
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Relating to a taxonomic group that contains all the descendants of a single common ancestor. All clades, such as birds and placental mammals, are monophyletic.
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Compare paraphyletic polyphyletic
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of monophyletic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Genetic analysis also showed that circoviruses found in whales and other cetaceans form a distinct and well-supported monophyletic group within the genus Circovirus.
From Science Daily • Jan. 6, 2026
They form a "monophyletic group," or a collection of animals with a common evolutionary ancestor that is believed to not be widely shared by other groups.
From Salon • Apr. 26, 2022
Consequently, land plants and closely related green algae are now part of a new monophyletic group called Streptophyta.
From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015
Both cydippid and lobate ctenophores, previously viewed as monophyletic clades, were recovered polyphyletic, indicating independent loss of both the cydippid larval stage and tentacle apparatus.
From Nature • May 20, 2014
We shall make use of it later on for our monophyletic theory of descent—the hypothesis of a common descent of man and all the metazoa from the gastraea.
From The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 by Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
