Disparida
Disparida is an parvclass of extinct marine animals in the class Crinoidea. Disparids are a speciose and morphologically diverse group of crinoids distinguished by their monocyclic calyx and slender arms without pinnules. They range from the Early Ordovician (Tremadocian) to Middle Permian, reaching their highest diversity during the Late Ordovician. While many disparids had a generalized shape typical of other stalked crinoids, some subgroups achieved strange forms. The long-lasting Calceocrinidae were recumbent forms, with a flattened crown bent back onto a stalk which rested on the seafloor. Other unusual disparid families include the armless Zophocrinidae, the spiral-armed Myelodactylidae, and the diminutive, simplified Pisocrinidae. Disparids have long been classified by the structure of their radial plates and different planes of symmetry, but a cumulative phylogenetic approach has failed to confirm the validity of many proposed subgroups. Nevertheless, Disparida itsel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crinoidea
Crinoids are marine invertebrates that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that remain attached to the sea floor by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms, called feather stars or comatulids, are members of the largest crinoid order, Comatulida. Crinoids are echinoderms in the phylum Echinodermata, which also includes the starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. They live in both shallow water and in depths of over . Adult crinoids are characterised by having the mouth located on the upper surface. This is surrounded by feeding arms, and is linked to a U-shaped gut, with the anus being located on the oral disc near the mouth. Although the basic echinoderm pattern of fivefold symmetry can be recognised, in most crinoids the five arms are subdivided into ten or more. These have feathery pinnules and are spread wide to gather planktonic particles from the water. At some stage in their lives, most crinoids have a short ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polyphyletic
A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies, which are explained as a result of convergent evolution. The arrangement of the members of a polyphyletic group is called a polyphyly .. [Source for pronunciation.] It is contrasted with monophyly and paraphyly. For example, the biological characteristic of warm-bloodedness evolved separately in the ancestors of mammals and the ancestors of birds; "warm-blooded animals" is therefore a polyphyletic grouping. Other examples of polyphyletic groups are algae, C4 photosynthesis, C4 photosynthetic plants, and Xenarthra#Evolutionary relationships, edentates. Many taxonomists aim to avoid homoplasies in grouping taxa together, with a goal to identify and eliminate groups that are found to be polyphyletic. This is often the stimulus for major re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paraphyly
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic grouping (a clade) includes a common ancestor and ''all'' of its descendants. The terms are commonly used in phylogenetics (a subfield of biology) and in the tree model of historical linguistics. Paraphyletic groups are identified by a combination of synapomorphies and symplesiomorphies. If many subgroups are missing from the named group, it is said to be polyparaphyletic. The term received currency during the debates of the 1960s and 1970s accompanying the rise of cladistics, having been coined by zoologist Willi Hennig to apply to well-known taxa like Reptilia (reptiles), which is paraphyletic with respect to birds. Reptilia contains the last common ancestor of reptiles and all descendants of that ancest ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hertha Doreck
Hertha Sieverts-Doreck, née Sieverts (15 July 1889 – 30 March 1991), was a German paleontologist who studied and published her research about the marine animals called Cretaceous Crinoids. She often published her research under the name Hertha Sieverts-Doreck. Life Hertha Walburga Doris Sieverts-Doreck was born in Völklingen, German Empire, in 1899, the eldest of three daughters born to a chemist father. Education She trained as a teacher for schools in Prussia, but she became interested in mathematics and the natural sciences. Doreck focused on zoology, paleontology and geology during her time at the University of Berlin and she researched Cretaceous Crinoids for her dissertation, which she completed under the supervision of Josef Felix Pompeckj in 1927.Ogilvie & Harvey, pp. 750–51 Research After she was only able to find a series of short-term positions, she was finally hired at the Institute for Applied Geology in Bonn at a very low salary in 1930. Although she mo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Monophyletic
In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population), i.e. excludes non-descendants of that common ancestor # the grouping contains all the descendants of that common ancestor, without exception Monophyly is contrasted with paraphyly and polyphyly as shown in the second diagram. A ''paraphyletic'' grouping meets 1. but not 2., thus consisting of the descendants of a common ancestor, excepting one or more monophyletic subgroups. A '' polyphyletic'' grouping meets neither criterion, and instead serves to characterize convergent relationships of biological features rather than genetic relationships – for example, night-active primates, fruit trees, or aquatic insects. As such, these characteristic features of a polyphyletic grouping ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |