#and even that barely counts as convergent evolution when they're just | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alyanas-little-hideout · 1 month ago

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Sorry for posting notes but it's actually worth mentioning that taxonomy is a predecessor for determining how different creatures are related based on shared physical characteristics but, importantly, doesn't presume evolutionary mechanism in the same way that phylogeny- that is, basing the connections between animals on the percentage of shared genome data- does.

Phylogeny has 0 concern for shared physical characteristics- a hyrax and a whale are more closely related than a whale and a shark, for instance, despite the shared body plan and lifestyles of sharks and whales and the completely unrelated body plans of hyraxes and whales.

Also phylogenetically -fish don't exist as a group -lobe-finned fish encompasses all land animals -sharks and ray-finned fish are more distinct than any land animal is from another -trees don't exist as a group -birds are dinosaurs, which are reptiles, which are amphibians.

and other fun oddities of biology.

which of my household appliances am i most closely related to

#they're often taught together but they're different systems with different assumptions and approaches #technically speaking phylogeny doesn't even group things by shared genetic code but is instead the study of evolution through the assumptio #that evolution occurs primarily through changes to DNA sequences over time #which all evidence does support #to be clear #but that is still a core assumption that phylogeny makes #while taxonomy makes the assumption that similar things are related #which is often but not always correct #Like the tree thing #like conceptually we all understand what a tree is #but they aren't like...#related #they're really different plants that have really different evolutionary histories #and convergently evolved to be tall and woody #and even that barely counts as convergent evolution when they're just #so distinct in basically every way outside of an incredibly vague “shape”#even though if you asked anyone on the street whether or not something was a tree they'd answer pretty quick #but when you want to actualy genetically classify them it turns out that they're just....#isn't a unified “tree” branch of the tree of life #also I love that we call it the tree of life then always draw it as a circle #like commit to the bit #make it a tree #make it like a big funnel instead of just making it a circle #like I get that it's a circle cause life diversified to an absurd extent #but like #call it idk the circle of life #wait that's already taken #okay I guess tree can stay #even if we can't define a tree

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