Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An evolved character or trait that is shared by two or more taxonomic groups and is considered to have originated in their common ancestor. Hair is synapomorphic for marsupials, primates, and all other taxa that are grouped together in the class Mammalia.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun cladistics A derived
trait that is shared by two or moretaxa of sharedancestry
Etymologies
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Examples
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Suppose you have a widespread species, of which one population evolves a synapomorphy that isolates is from the other populations.
(UPDATED) Another half-brained science headline - The Panda's Thumb 2009
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Is metatarsal fusion a synapomorphy for the group?
Archive 2006-03-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Well, perhaps not, as some workers have expressed scepticism, stating for example that the identification of Old World peccaries as peccaries proper is ‘not based on synapomorphy’ (Wright 1998, p. 389), the implication therefore being that these taxa might be suids that are convergently peccary-like in a few features.
Why putting your hand in a peccary’s mouth is a really bad idea Darren Naish 2006
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Well, perhaps not, as some workers have expressed scepticism, stating for example that the identification of Old World peccaries as peccaries proper is ‘not based on synapomorphy’ (Wright 1998, p. 389), the implication therefore being that these taxa might be suids that are convergently peccary-like in a few features.
Archive 2006-08-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Carcinization as an underlying synapomorphy for the decapod crustacean taxon Meiura.
All that matters 2005
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On the tetrapod-side of the equation, we have forms such as Kenichthys that demonstrate the transformation of the earliest tetrapod synapomorphy: the internal nostril.
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The hypothesis that Latimeria is the sister group of amphibians is the least corroborated, as only a single possible synapomorphy, presence of cervical and lumbar enlargements of the spinal cord, supports this hypothesis.
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Note his t-shirt and red, piercing eyes synapomorphy of Austrian people.
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C, chordate synapomorphy; V, vertebrate synapomorphy.
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A single segmented waist may be a synapomorphy for Formicidae, but within the family it is symplesiomorphic among the subfamilies sharing it.
WordPress.com News 2009
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