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Outgroup
________ is a taxon that is not part of the taxonomic group being studied but is closely related.
Systematics
________ is the discipline of biology that characterizes and classifies the relationships among all organisms on Earth.
Paleontologists
________ are scientists who study fossils, pieces of physical evidence from an organism that lived in the past.
Synapomorphies
________ are important because they allow biologists to recognize monophyletic groups- also called clades or lineages.
Sister groups
________ are two descendants that split from the same node and therefore are each other s closest relatives.
monophyletic group
A(n) ________ is an evolutionary unit that includes an ancestral species and all of its descendants, but no others.
Paleozoic
The ________ " (ancient life) "era begins with the appearance of most major animal lineages and ends with the obliteration of almost all multicellular life- forms at the end of the Permian period.
Paleogene
The Cenozoic " (recent life) "era is divided into the ________, Neogene, and Quaternary periods.
Convergent evolution
________ is the independent evolution of similar traits in distantly related organisms due to adaptation to similar environments and lifestyles.
ancestral trait
A(n) ________ is a character that existed in an ancestor.
synapomorphy
A(n) ________ is a trait found in two or more taxa that is present in their most recent common ancestor but is missing in more distant ancestors.
Phylogeny
The branching evolutionary history of species or other groups of organisms is called a
Phylogenetic tree
is a simplified diagram of this history.
Derived trait
is one that is a modified form of the ancestral trait, found in a descendant.
Tree of life
is the most universal of all phylogenetic trees.
Fossil record
is the total collection of fossils that paleontologists and amateur collectors have found throughout the world and archived in thousands of private and public collections.
Note 
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