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Are You Man or Mouse?

Posted by michael on from the squeek-squeek dept.

fygment writes "... according to recent studies. It seems were more closely related to rodents than the carnivores i.e. the primates didn't evolve from the noble jungle cats, wolves, etc. Were closer to rats. Of course this has long been suspected in lawyers and SCO execs ..."

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  1. No by axolotl_farmer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tha part of the tree you refer to is unresolved , a polytomy.

    What is important in a phylogenetic tree is branching order. When the branching order is uncertain or ambiguous, a polytomy is put in place. The placement of the branches in a polytomy are usually arbitrary, or in alphabetical order.

    From the tree, you can tell that primates are most closely related to tree shrews, and that the group (primates + tree shrews) in turn is most closely related to bats and colugos.