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31 July 2015 Forked Tongues Revisited: Molecular Apomorphies Support Morphological Hypotheses of Squamate Evolution
Caleb D. McMahan, Layla R. Freeborn, Ward C. Wheeler, Brian I. Crother
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Abstract

Incongruence between morphological and molecular-based phylogenetic hypotheses has been reported across a wide range of taxa. Specifically, morphological and molecular hypotheses of squamate phylogeny have been consistently incongruent and have been notoriously difficult to reconcile. With the ever-rising popular view of the superiority of molecular data over morphological data, studies have been biased toward seeking explanations for homoplasy in the morphological data. We propose considering approaches that do not make a priori assumptions about the superiority of one type of data over another. We present two case studies using the proto-oncogene c-mos, as well as a large multi-locus dataset, to examine apomorphy distributions across hypotheses. This approach reveals novel insights into data incongruence currently plaguing squamate phylogeny, with direct implications for other scenarios of phylogenetic incongruence.

© 2015 by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
Caleb D. McMahan, Layla R. Freeborn, Ward C. Wheeler, and Brian I. Crother "Forked Tongues Revisited: Molecular Apomorphies Support Morphological Hypotheses of Squamate Evolution," Copeia 103(3), 525-529, (31 July 2015). https://doi.org/10.1643/CH-14-015
Received: 30 January 2014; Accepted: 1 March 2015; Published: 31 July 2015
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