adjective
definition
Of or pertaining to phylogeny; phylogenetic.
definition
Of or pertaining to gradual evolutionary change along a single line of descent.
Examples of phyletic in a Sentence
Huxley, the sporosac is the starting-point of an evolution leading up through the various types of gonophores to the free medusa as the culminating point of a phyletic series.
When two organs can be traced along the same line of descent to one primitive form, that is when they are found to be mono phyletic, their homology is complete; when, however, they are traceable to two primitive forms, though these forms belong to the same morphological series, they are polyphyletic and therefore only incompletely homologous.
Each of these schools impresses its pupils, in the case of the birds, with its own stamp, but there are many combinations, since in the course of phyletic development many a group of birds has exchanged one school for another.
On account of the presence and mode of origin (from the gut-wall) of this organ Bateson introduced the term hemichorda as a phyletic name for the class Enteropneusta.
The collective term " mutation," as now employed by palaeontologists, signifies a type modified to a slight degree in one or more of its characters along a progressive or definite line of phyletic development.
The absolute agreement in the results independently obtained by these various investigators, the interpretation of individual development as the guide to phyletic development, the demonstration of continuous genetic series, each mutation falling into its proper place and all showing a definite direction, constitute contributions to biological philosophy of the first importance, which have been little known or appreciated by zoologists because of their publication in monographs of very special character.
Phyletic gaps began to be filled in this general way, however, by discovery, especially through remarkable 1 The Dutch botanist, De Vries, has employed the term in another sense, to mean a slight jump or saltation.
In general we find an analogy between the development of groups and of organs; we discover that each phyletic branch of certain organisms traverses a geologic career comparable to the life of an individual, that we may often distinguish, especially among invertebrates, a phase of youth, a phase of maturity, a phase of senility or degeneration foreshadowing the extinction of a type.