Re: "Common ancestor" in cladistics

[Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:51:11 -0400 (EDT) John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>
writes:

> Students
> buy the idea of evolution by n.s., but tell them that their own 
> existence
> depended upon the survival of a certain fish in the Devonian and 
> they will
> balk.


Depending on how one defines the informal group "fish", your students may
have a right to balk.  If you mean that we had an ancestor that was a
member of the clade [Pices + Chondrichthes], then I would think not.  But
I've been wrong before.

Aren't  "fish" paraphyletic??

<pb>
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