The phrase Dead Clade Walking refers to the fact that some clades (groups) of organisms which survived mass extinctions, either become extinct a few million years after the mass extinction or fail to recover in numbers and diversity.
Read more about Dead Clade Walking: Origin of Phrase, Evidence
Famous quotes containing the words dead and/or walking:
“Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.”
—Franklin Pierce Adams (1881–1960)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)