In phylogenetics, the crown group of a collection of species consists of the living representatives of the collection together with their ancestors back to their last common ancestor as well as all of that ancestor's descendants. It is thus a clade, a group consisting of a species and all its descendents.
The name was given by Willi Hennig, the formulator of phylogenetic systematics, as a way of classifying living organisms relative to extinct ones. Though formulated in the 1970s, the term was not commonly used until its reintroduction in the 2000s by Graham Budd and Sören Jensen.
Read more about Crown Group: Contents of The Crown Group, Other Groups Under The Crown Group Concept, Palaeontological Significance of Stem- and Crown Groups, Stem-groups in Systematics
Famous quotes containing the words crown and/or group:
“She will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Remember that the peer group is important to young adolescents, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Parents are often just as important, however. Don’t give up on the idea that you can make a difference.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.5 (1985)