Re: your mail

["King, Norm" <nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu>]

>>That's not how I understood the question; the original poster 
>>was asking about the term for organisms that are the *end result* of 
>>convergent evolution.  For example, "The marsupial mole, the golden 
>>mole, and the true moles are _______, and they got that way through 
>>convergent evolution."  

Tom Holtz suggested that "avatar" is the word to fill in that blank.

Perhaps "homomorph" would be more intuitive.  "Homoplast" would work,
too, but doesn't sound as good.  Avatar really sounds strange to me.
I'm not a Hindu.

To paraphrase Tom, "So, the marsupial sabretooth, the nimravid 
sabretooths (-teeth?*), and the true sabrecats are all different 
homomorphs of the sabretoothed mammal mode."


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Norman R. King                                       tel:  (812) 464-1794
Department of Geosciences                            fax:  (812) 464-1960
University of Southern Indiana
8600 University Blvd.
Evansville, IN 47712                      e-mail:  nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu