>> In one recent study, for example, Lampropeltis (which is descended from a species of Elaphe which migrated to the Old World from the New) was picked as an “outgroup” in a mtDNA analysis of European species of Elaphe. That is analogous to picking Homo sapiens as the outgroup when analyzing the relationship among Gorilla, Pan and Pongo! One certainly cannot blame the classification for that mistake.

Oh yes one can.

Actually, I can't think of a better example to show why the recognition of paraphyletic taxa is grossly misleading than the one you have just provided. Thank you for making the case for monophyletic taxa only for us.

Cheers,

WW
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