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Synapomorphy

Synapomorphy refers to shared characteristics of a specific cladistic grouping that not only describe individuals but also define the clade. The feature included in synapomorphy must be shared by two or more taxa, and it must be derived from a common ancestor. These synapomorphies can be used to establish phylogenies.

An example of synapomorphy describes the relationship between cats and dogs. Both animals have teeth referred to as the carnassial pair, and they can be shown to have derived from a common ancestor. Other members of a clad including cats and dogs – shrews and kangaroos – do not show the carnassial pair, therefore are further away in relatedness than cats and dogs are to one another.

This is oversimplified, and synapomorphy generally needs more than one similarity before it works properly. But by tracing different synapomorphy down the lineages of the development of life, cladistics researchers can build a tree of life, and perhaps determine how most living things are related to one another.

Web Resources On Synapomorphy

The Carnassial Pair as a synapomorphy of Cats & Dogs
Limitations of Relative Apparent Synapomorphy Analysis (RASA) for Measuring Phylogenetic Signal

Book Resources On Synapomorphy

Cladistics: Perspectives on the Reconstruction of Evolutionary History by Duncan & Stuessy
Morphological, crystallographic, and stratigraphic data in cladistic analyses of blastoid phylogeny by Brian E Bodenbender

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