[Taxacom] Confused origins

[Pierre Deleporte]

This proposition is really exciting, but if this is the case, the "X"  
taxon should stand, like the Orang, on a long branch of some sort,  
which rather suggests investigating promising places like the forest  
canopy in Sequoia National Park


> The perennial discussions of whether humans and chimps, or humans and
> orangs are more closely related are not without merit. I've pointed out
> in the past that molecular trees and morphological trees may be
> decoupled, and both trees may be true at once.
>
> One might consider that the most parsimonious solution is for the
> molecular and morphological trees to be congruent. How? Well if there
> were a human-orang intermediate taxon with lots of molecular traits
> matching the human-orang ones and few matching chimp-gorilla, it might
> change the molecular cladogram from
>
> (((human, chimp) gorilla) orang) to ((((human, "X") orang) chimp)
> gorilla).
>
> In fact, given parsimony as a goal, the lack of congruence of molecular
> and morphological cladograms is actual evidence of the existence of such
> a beast! For instance, "X" could be extinct, or even still around,
> peering at us from beneath beetling brows in covert behind bushes in the
> high Himalayas or deep woods in northwestern North America.
>
> I cannot claim this idea as my own, but was notified of this in a letter
> to me yesterday from A. Yeti, General Delivery, Kathmandu.
>
> *****************************
> Richard H. Zander
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> and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
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-- 
Pierre Deleporte
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