Cheating anatomy to promote the ‘deer-like ancestry of whales’ hypothesis

Philip Perry, writing for BigThink.com
referenced a five-year-old paper by Vermeij and Motani 2018 regarding land-to-sea transitions in vertebrates. Perry’s online article was promoted with a photo of a model of Indohyus and the caption “Note it’s deer-like feet.” Unfortunately, the fossil of Indohyus does not have deer-like feet (Fig 1). As you can see, the feet of Indohyus are actually quite broad with spreading toes, like those of Pakicetus (Fig 2). Cheating anatomy is not good for science.

Figure 1. Model of Indohyus from the BigThink.com article compared to fossil material of Indohyus.

Promoting the deer-like hypothesis, the authors of Wikipedia wrote:
“Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean ancestors of whales.”

That hypothesis of interrelationships was shown to be false in 2016 due to taxon exclusion. It also does not make sense – but is widely embraced at the university level. According to the large reptile tree (LRT, 2223 taxa) Indohyus nests with an extant taxon, Tenrec (Fig 2), not with ungulates.

Figure 2. Skeleton of Tenrec alongside restored skeleton model of Pakicetus. Note: neither has deer-like feet. Neither are herbivores.

This all goes back to Gingerich et al 2001 and Thewissen et al 2007,
who wrote about “aquatic artiodactyls”. See figure 3.

Figure 3. Image from BigThink.com substituting Elomeryx instead of Indohyus basal to whales in general. This is a false narrative promoted by university professors and the press.

This whale origin problem could have been corrected several years ago,
but workers refereeing a manuscript submission rejected it. The manuscript points to ‘taxon exclusion’ as the only reason prior workers missed the mark. That might have been embarrassing to the academics like Gingerich and Thewiessen who mistakenly promoted the ‘early artiodactyl‘ and ‘aquatic artiodactyl’ hypothesis.

This instance of rejection was not an isolated incident, but is a common practice in paleontology. That’s why it took over a century for paleontologists to embrace the ‘birds are dinosaurs’ hypothesis and why other workers continue to embrace the ‘bat-wing bird’ hypothesis, among a slew of other bogus hypotheses presented to tuition-paying students.

You can read that rejected manuscript by Googling “Triple origin of whales”, at ResearchGate.net.

Special thanks to paleontologist, Don Prothero,
who linked the BigThink.com article to his Facebook page.

References
Gingerich, PD, Haq M, Zalmout IS, Khan IH, and Malkani MS 2001. Origin of whales from early artiodactyls: hands and feet of Eocene Protocetidae from Pakistan. Science, 293:2239-2242.
Perry P 2023. Ancient deer-like creatures returned to the ocean to become whales. But why? BigThink.com
Thewissen JGM, Cooper LN, Clementz MT, Bajpai S and Tiwari BN 2007. Whales originated from aquatic artiodactyls in the Eocene epoch of India. Nature 450:1190-1195.
Vermeij GJ and Motani R 2018. Land to sea transitions in vertebrates: the dynamics of colonization. Paleobiology 44(2):237–250. online here

wiki/Indohyus

Tiny, toothless Stylephorus now nests with another blenny: toothy Gigantura

Untested traits include
those cylindrical eyeballs and that elongate lower caudal fin.

Figure 1. Gigantura compared to Stylephorus to a reduced scale.

Gigantura indica
(Brauer A 1901, Konstantinidis and Johnson 2016; 20 cm standard length, not counting the caudal fin, Figs 1–3) is the extant telescope fish. Comparisons with sister taxa indicate the indicated ‘palatine’ with teeth is actually the premaxilla in figure 2 from Gregory 1933. The toothless maxilla (green) is located at the posterior mandible. The postorbital (=circumorbital ring) is reduced to two vestiges. This small fish can swallow prey larger than itself.

Figure 2. Skull of Gigantura from Gregory 1933. Colors and new labels added here.

Figure 3. Gigantura magnified to show facial details including the cylindrical eyeballs.

Stylephorus chordatus
(Shaw, 1791, Regan 1924, Figs 4, 5) is the extant tube-eye or thread-tail. It was considered an oarfish relative (Fig 6), but here nests with Gigantura (Figs 1–3). Note the large eyes and flexible neck. Convergent with seahorses and oarfish, the tube-eye also feeds on tiny plankton sucked in as its tubular mouth enlarges the oral cavity by 40x (Figs 4, 5).

Figure 4. Stylephorus skull animated. Colors added here. Compare to Gigantura in figure 1. The maxilla (mx) labeled here is actually the anterior portion of the postorbital. And now you know why ray-fin fish can be difficult to score.

Figure 5. Stylephorus ontogeny. Feeding animated. Much enlarged. Note the eye-cylinders.

Both of these odd deep-sea fish
find a last common ancestor in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2223 taxa) close to Acanthemblemaria, the tube blenny (Fig 7). So all three are blennies.

Figure 7. Traditional fish cladogram nesting Stylephorus with opahs and oarfish.

Acanthemblemaria aceroi
(genus: Metzelaar 1919; species: Hastings, Eytan and Summers 2020) is a newly described tube blenny described with a µCT scan skeleton. Note the vestige maxilla (green) detached from the lacrimal (tan). Here it nests with Neoclinus, the sarcastic fringhead blenny.

Figure 7. Acanthemblemaria, the tube blenny is presently the last common ancestor of Gigantura and Stylephorus in the LRT. Note the emphasis on the eye sockets and the diminution of the maxilla (green) with a large vestige posteriorly, as in Gigantura (Fig 1).

Housekeeping the ray-fin fish clade continues unabated,
testing taxa together that rarely get tested together in trait analysis.

References
Brauer A 1901. Über einige von der Valdivia-Expedition gesammelte Tiefseefische und ihre Augen. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Gesamten Naturwissenschaften zu Marburg 8: 115–130.
Konstantinidis P and Johnson GD 2016. Osteology of the telescope fishes of the genus Gigantura (Brauer, 1901), Teleostei: Aulopiformes. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 179(2):338–353.
Regan CT 1924. The morphology of the rare oceanic fish, Stylophorus chordatus, Shaw; based on specimens collected in the Atlantic by the “Dana” expeditions, 1920–1922. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 96(674): PDF
Shaw G 1791. Description of the Stylephorus chordatus, a new fish. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 2d Ser: Zoology 1:90–92.

wiki/Stylephorus
wiki/Sarcastic Fringehead
wiki/Acanthemblemaria
wiki/Gigantura

Opah relatives in the LRT

Recent housekeeping
on the ray-fin fish portion of the large reptile tree (LRT, 2223 taxa) is finally coming to a conclusion (let’s hope!). Today’s graphic (Fig 1) presents the large, disc-shaped opah (genus: Lampris) and a menagerie of equally odd close relatives. These include the surface sprinter, Exocoetus, the deep-sea flashlight fish, Anomalops, and the elephant-nosed Gnathonemus (Fig 1). The sole fossil taxon, Massamorichthys, is from the Paleocene.

Figure 1. Lampris, the opah, shown in two views, plus its many smaller relatives to scale. Presently the last common ancestor of Lampris and Seriola rivoliana is the tiny stickleback, Gasterosteus, the outgroup taxon, which in turn is basal to pipefish, oarfish and seahorses.

A 3rd and 4th spine > ray fin transition

According to results recovered
by the sometimes growing and often changing large reptile tree (LRT, 2222 taxa), two more spiny sharks were basal to ray fin fish clades (Figs 1, 2). The Middle Silurian spiny shark, Nerepisacanthus, nests basal to the Middle Triassic ray-fin, Boreosomus (Figs 1, 2) and that fish alone, given the present taxon list.

By contrast,
the Middle Devonian spiny shark, Cheiracanthus (Fig 1), nests basal to the Sarcopterygii, including the lobe-fin coelocanths + fukanichthiids, and ultimately the tetrapods, PLUS Kalops (Fig 1) and the ray-fin Actinopterygii (Fig 1).

Figure 1. A third and fourth clade arising from spiny sharks (Acantodii) are shown here. Boreosomus is the only tested taxon that arises from Nerepisacanthus. The rest of the taxa leading to lobefin fish and tetrapods arise from Cheiracanthus.

We looked at three other spiny-shark to ray-fin transitions
earlier here and here and several years earlier here.

According to Wikipedia,
“They [acanthodians] are currently considered to represent a paraphyletic grade of various fish lineages basal to extant Chondrichthyes, which includes living sharks, rays, and chimaeras. Acanthodians possess a mosaic of features shared with both osteichthyans (bony fish) and chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish).

In the LRT, acnathodians are not basal to sharks and kins, but to bony fish.

Figure 2. Overlooked until now, the Middle Triassic ray-fin Boreosomus nests with the Middle Silurian spine-fin Nerepisacanthus. The LRT recovers overlooked interrelationships, like this, by testing taxa together that have never been tested together before, minimizing the common problem of taxon exclusion.

This appears to be a novel hypothesis of interrelationships.
If not, please provide a citation so I can promote it here. The LRT presents a hypothesis of interrelationships that requires confirmation, refutation or modification from independent research using a similar taxon list. In house modification continues at present.

References
Friedman M and Brazeau MD 2010. A reappraisal of the origin and basal radiation of
the Osteichthyes. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30:1, 36-56, DOI:
10.1080/02724630903409071
Schaeffer B 1968. The origin and basic radiation of the Osteichthyes; pp. 207–222 in T. Ørvig (ed.), Current Problems of Lower Vertebrate Phylogeny. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm.

wiki/Acanthodii

A 2nd spine > ray fin transition

The transition(s) from spine fins to ray fins
apparently has not been documented until a few days ago, and again today as a second transition is recovered, this one leaving no living descendants.

Adding taxa minimizes traditional omissions. The large reptile tree (LRT, 2222 taxa) recovers overlooked interrelationships by testing taxa together than have never been tested together before. That’s the driver behind this twelve-year-old experiment in phylogenetic analysis, still a work in progress.

Figure 1. Taxa at a second spine to ray fin transition include Harpacanthus and Nerepisacanthus with spine fins, and Feroxichthys and Perleidus with gracile bundled spines, otherwise known as rays without webbing between the rays. Also note the co-ossification of the preopercular from more than a dozen discrete elements in Cheiracanthus.

The transition from spiny Middle Silurian Nerepisacanthus
to bundled-ray apparently without webbing Middle Triassic Feroxichthys is also told in the facial traits (Fig 2). Their shared premaxillary dentition is not seen in other tested taxa.

Figure 2. Above: Middle Silurian Nerepisacanthus. Below: Middle Triassic Feroxichthys to size and to scale.

Nerepisacanthus denisoni
(Burrow 2011; Middle Silurian, 13cm long) is the oldest near-complete acanthodian. Long tabulars (red) readily identify this genus.

Feroxichthys yunnanensis
(Xu 2020; Middle Triassic; 29cm length; IVPP V 25692) is a possible durophagus (eating hard-shelled prey or corals) fish with robust premaxillary teeth. Like other colobodontids this fish has small blunt button-like crushing teeth on the posterior jaws. Colobodontidae does not traditionally extend to Middle Silurian spiny sharks.

This appears to be a novel hypothesis of interrelationships.
If not, please provide a citation so I can promote it here.

References
Burrow C 2011. A partial articulated acanthodian from the Silurian of New Brunswick, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 48 (9): 1329–1341.
Xu G-H. 2020. Feroxichthys yunnanensis gen. et sp. nov. (Colobodontidae, Neopterygii), a large durophagous predator from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) Luoping Biota, eastern Yunnan, China. PeerJ 8:e10229 DOI 10.7717/peerj.10229

wiki/Cheiracanthus
wiki/Nerepisacanthus
wiki/Peltopleurus
wiki/Feroxichthys – not yet listed
wiki/Colobodontidae

Sea robin evolution

Once again,
graphics (Figs 1, 2) tell the evolutionary story documented by the LRT, a work in progress.

Figure 1. The evolution of sea robins, including Prohalecites, Albertonia, Thoracopterus, Potanichthys, Dactylopterus, Prionotus and Satyrichthys.

Here the origin of sea robins,
extant benthic undersea gliding ray-fin fish, is documented back to Prohalecites (Figs 1, 2), a small Triassic fish considered “the oldest known teleosteomorph”. Transitional taxa include Thoracopterus and Potanichthys (Figs 1, 2). These two are traditionally considered to be Triassic flying fish, unrelated to, but convergent with Exocoetus, the extant flying fish.

Figure 2. The evolution of sea robins, including Prohalecites, Albertonia, Thoracopterus, Potanichthys, Dactylopterus, Prionotus and Satyrichthys documented by their skulls in dorsal and lateral views. Not to scale. The preoperculum (light yellow) is distinct in this clade. Note the reduction of the jugal (cyan).

Sea robins do not approach the surface,
nor do they glide in the air like flying fish do. These two clades of fish with large pectoral fins are not related to one another. They developed large pectoral fins convergently and for different purposes. Sea robins seem to use the oversize pectorals for display and a bit of gliding over the sea floor (Fig 1). There is a third clade of ray-fins that also develop oversize pectoral fins.

Figure 3. Pterois volitans, the extant lionfish, is a member of the Scorpaeniformes, a clade sharing several traits with sea robins, but are not related in the LRT.

Traditionally
sea robins (= gurnards) are considered members of the Scorpaeniformes, like the lionfish (Pterois volitans, Fig 3), which have a similar skull and similar large pectoral fins. In the LRT lionfish nest apart from sea robins. Again, similar derived traits developed by convergence.

This appears to be a novel hypothesis of interrelationships.
If not, please provide a citation so I can promote it here. Work on the LRT continues.

References
wiki/Triglidae
hwiki/Scorpaeniformes

Harpacanthus and Menaspis might both be related to Raja, the thorned skate

Two odd fossil vertebrates
could be related to each other and both to Raja, the extant thorned skate (Fig 1). Menaspis (Fig 1) is from the Permian. Harpacanthus (Fig 1) is from the Early Carboniferous.

This is a guess based on shared paired structures with no homology in any other known vertebrates. Plus recent re-scoriing in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2222 taxa, see below).

Figure 1. Raja, the thorned skate, compared to Permian Menaspis in ventral exposure and Early Carboniferous Harpacanthus in dorsal expoure. The three paired elements not found in other vertebrates appear to be similar. Not much else to go on here.

Menaspsis appears to be exposed in ventral view
(Fig 1) and is missing at least the rostrum and perhaps the skull. No mouth parts are known, unless certain anterior spines are identified as mouth parts (Patterson 1968). This fossil needs to be µCT scanned to see if part of a dorsal skull is inside the matrix. Too little is known of this taxon to add it to the LRT. Historically Menaspis has been considered a strange catfish, a spiny shark and a skate (Fig 1). This taxon is where wise men fear to tread.

By contrast Harpacanthus is exposed in dorsal view
(Fig 1) and presents the rostrum, scleral rings and braincase. An anterior extension of the rostrum may be hidden in the matrix below the three pairs of elongate ‘toothed’ elements. Again, this fossils needs to be µCT scanned to see if skate-like ventral mouth parts are preserved in the matrix.

Rescored in the LRT
with a possible skate-like Bauplan in mind (= bias) Harpacanthus nests with Raja and Leucoraja. Previously Harpacanthus was allied with Harpagofututor (Lund and Grogran 2004), in which males had jointed rostral appendages, and with extant bristlemouths (Gonostoma), a wide-ranging deep-sea fish with slender skull elements. Patterson 1968 did not include Raja in his tree topology.

If this hypothesis has any merit or problem
reply with a pertinent comment so corrections can be initiated. These taxa have been hair-pullers. Nothing is settled yet.

References
Bendix-Almgreen SE 1971. The anatomy of Menaspis armada and the phylogenetic affinities of the menaspid bradyodonts. Lethaia 4(1):21–49.
Ewald J 1848. Über Menaspis, eine neue fossile Fischgattung. Berichte Über die zur Bekanntmachung Geeigneten Verhandlungen der Königlich-Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zur Berlin 1848:33-35.
Girard CF 1858. Fishes. In: General report upon zoology of the several Pacific railroad routes, 1857 (, ed.), Beverley Tucker, Washington, D.C. No. U.S. Senate Document No. 78: i-xiv, 1-400, pls. 1-21.
Goode GB and Bean TH 1883. Reports on the results of dredging under the supervision of Alexander Agassiz, on the east coast of the United States, during the summer of 1880, by the U. S. coast survey steamer “Blake,” Commander J. R. Bartlett, U. S. N., commanding. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.10(5): 183-226.
Günther 1878. Preliminary notices of deep-sea fishes collected during the voyage of H. M. S. `Challenger. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Series 5). 2(7/8/9)17-28, 179-187, 248-251.
Jäckel O 1890. Über Menaspis, nebst allgemeinen Bemerkungen über die systematische Stellung der Elasmobranchii. Sitzungsb. Ges. nature. Freunde, Berlin 1891: 115–131.
Lund R 1977. New information on the evolution of the Bradyodont Chondrichthyes. Fieldiana Geol. 33:521–539.
Lund R and Grogan E 2004. Five new euchondrocephalan Chondrichthyes from the Bear Gulch Limestone (Serpukhovian, Namurian E2b) of Montana, USA. In G. Arratia, M. Wilson, R. Cloutier (eds.), Recent Advances in the Origin and Early Radiation of Vertebrates 505-531.
Morris and Roberts 1862. Quart. J. Geol. Soc., 18.
Ortlam D 1986. Neue Aspekte zur Deutung von Menaspis armata Ewald (Kupferschiefer, Zechstein 1, Deutschland) mit Hilfe der stereoskopischen Röntgentechnik. Geologisches Jahrbuch Reihe A, Band A 81.
Patterson C 1965. The phylogeny of the chimaeroids. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, 249(757): 101–219.
Patterson C 1968. Menaspis and the bradyodonts. In: T. Ørvig, Current Problems of Lower Vertebrate Phylogeny. (Hrsg.): Nobel Symposium. Band 4. Almquist and Wiksell, Stockholm 1968, S. 171–205.
Rafineque CS 1810. Indice d’ittiologia siciliana ossia catalogo metodico dei nomi latini, italiani, e siciliani dei pesci, che si rinvengono in Sicilia disposti secondo un metodo naturale eseguito da un appendice che contiene la descrizione di alcuni nuovi pesci siciliani. Opuscolo del signore C.S. Rafinesque Schmaltz. Messina. 70 pp. + 2 plates.
Schaumberg G 1992. Neue Informationen zu Menaspis armata Ewald. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 66:311.
Traquair RH 1886. On Harpacanthus, a new genus of Carboniferous Selachian Spines. Journal of Natural History. Series 5. 18(108): 493–496.

wiki/Sarcastic Fringehead
wiki/Harpacanthus
wiki/Gonostomatidae
wiki/Gonostoma
wiki/Cyclothone
wiki/Homalacanthus
wiki/Acanthodes
wiki/Menaspis
German wiki/Menaspis

Origin of fins from acanthodian spines

Friedman and Brazeau 2010 reappraised
the origin and basal radiation of Osteichthyes, the clade of bony fish that includes Tetrapoda and Primates. They wrote, “There has been minimal documentation of the pattern of character acquisition leading to the osteichthyan crown. We review the synapomorphies proposed for various levels within osteichthyan phylogeny (total group; Acanthodes + crown group; crown group; Sarcoptergyii; Actinopterygii), confirming some, rejecting others, and making new additions. This distribution of characters is used to interpret the placement of problematic Siluro-Devonian genera traditionally assigned to Actinopterygii, and suggests these taxa are stem osteichthyans. Earlier placements of these forms within the crown are symptomatic of taxonomies based on unpolarized similarities rather than synapomorphies.”

Figure 1. Nerepisacanthus, Peltopleurus, Ticinolepis and Saurolepis, taxa at the spiny to ray-fin and lobe-in transition in the LRT. Of these taxa, none were mentioned by Friedman and Brazeau 2010. Note the ‘scaled’ pectoral and pelvic fins in late-surviving Peltopleurus from the Middle Triassic, a taxon that must have originated in the Late Silurian given itsEarly Devonian descendants.

Schaeffer 1968
also attempted to describe osteichthyan radiation in the pre-computer era.

Friedman and Brazeau concluded,
“Many aspects of early vertebrate phylogeny have been enriched and resolved since Schaeffer (1968), but the osteichthyan stem is not among these. The problem, it seems, is not limited to bony fishes: recent phylogenetic analyses of Chondrichthyes have suggested a similarly naked or depauperate stem. These apparent gaps in the early records of osteichthyans and chondrichthyans spur appeals to discover new, ever-older fossils that might plug the holes. But such fossils, when discovered, rarely deliver, because they are inserted into an old scheme of relationships with persistent roots in pre-cladistic taxonomy. The problem is not solely a lack of fossils. It is also the lack of adequate documentation of the fossils we already have, and a rigorous framework in which we might interpret them.”

“Systematic analyses inevitably evolve over time, but phylogenetic studies of different groups display remarkably similar ontogenies. First-generation treatments seek synapomorphies of ‘established’ groups. Rarely is assumed monophyly seriously challenged in such analyses. Only later do weak foundations, if present, begin to crumble under the weight of more exacting scrutiny.”

By contrast the large reptile tree (LRT, 2222 taxa) documents the origin of all included taxa back to pre-Cambrian worms. Key basal taxa, like Entelognathus and Shenacanthus, were described after 2010.

Currently
the LRT presents a hypothesis of interrelationships that requires confirmation, refutation or modification from independent research using a similar taxon list. In house modification continues at present.

References
Friedman M and Brazeau MD 2010. A reappraisal of the origin and basal radiation of
the Osteichthyes. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30:1, 36-56, DOI:
10.1080/02724630903409071
Schaeffer B 1968. The origin and basic radiation of the Osteichthyes; pp. 207–222 in T. Ørvig (ed.), Current Problems of Lower Vertebrate Phylogeny. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm.

Progress on the ray fin clade of the LRT

There have been two reasons
for the current dearth of blogposts:

1. Lack of new papers featuring novel taxa –
   Not sure if this is cyclical or terminal.
   
2. Housekeeping the ray fin clade of the LRT –
   This has been going on for several months, night and day. New discoveries are occurring, often due to correcting = re-identifying tiny fish facial bones with tetrapod homologies, then re-scoring the LRT. It’s a good thing to not have any other demands on my time. Thankfully, as greater understanding takes place, the topology is starting to settle down, signalling an end to this phase of the project. Reports will follow shortly.

Thank you for your readership.
Like you, I find the details and interrelationships fascinating.

Three reasons why you should never use genes to establish clades

Unless
you want to get published in Nature.

Li et al 2023
explored the diversity of vertebral formulae in mammals. That’s laudable.

Unfortunately their complex and thorough study
was undercut by a phylogenetic tree topology that relied on genes for its construction (Fig 1). So not only do the authors present only part of the story (the extant part), the presented story has many of its ‘chapters’ shuffled.

If you can defend this tree topology, please do so.

Figure 1. Cladogram from Li et al 2023. showing the distribution of tested mammals based on genetic testing. The LRT does not support this tree topology.

By contrast
the large reptile tree (LRT, 2222 taxa ) tests traits (not genes) in extant and extinct taxa. With more taxa the LRT documents micro-evolutionary events in deep time, including the transition from marsupial to placental and tenrecs to walking whales. This would be new territory for paleontologists who use genomic studies for their tree topologies. This would involve paleontologists… using fossils.

Li et al report,
“We focus on the serial differentiation of the vertebral column in 1,136 extant mammal species, using two indices that quantify complexity as the numerical richness and proportional
distribution of vertebrae across presacral regions and a third expressing the ratio between thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. We find strong evidence of a trend towards increasing complexity, where higher values propagate further increases in descendant lineages. In this article, we test for trends in the evolution of presacral complexity and investigate whether any such trends arose by passive or driven processes.”

“We used a recently assembled time-calibrated phylogeny of mammals built from a Bayesian analysis of a 31-gene supermatrix coupled with fossil-based backbone relationships and divergence time estimates.”

The genomic study used by Li et al
(Fig 1) was from Upham, Esselstyn and Jetz 2019.

Unfortunately Li et al found it acceptable. So did their senior advisors, their editors and their manuscript referees. This widespread acceptance of untenable tree topologies is a problem that everyone else seem to gloss over and pretend doesn’t exist.

I also wish that gene studies duplicated trait studies. Unfortunately, they don’t. If one has to go away, it should be the one with the quirky results (Fig 1) and the one that omits fossils.

References
Li Y et al (5 co-authors) 2023. Divergent vertebral formulae shape the evolution of axial complexity in mammals. Nature ecology & evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-01982-5
Upham NS, Esselstyn JA and Jetz W 2019. Inferring the mammal tree: species-level sets of phylogenies for questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. PLoS Biol. 17, e3000494 (2019).