What does "monophyly" mean?

In cladistics, the condition of being monophyletic, of including all descendants from a given ancestral species.

Monophyly

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
In cladistics, the condition of being monophyletic, of including all descendants from a given ancestral species. uncountable
"All of these studies have presupposed acanthodian monophyly and stereotyped acanthodian endoskeletal morphology on Acanthodes, the latest-occurring, and a highly apomorphic genus."

Antonyms

All antonyms

paraphyly polyphyly

Example

More examples

"All of these studies have presupposed acanthodian monophyly and stereotyped acanthodian endoskeletal morphology on Acanthodes, the latest-occurring, and a highly apomorphic genus."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.