Question

Your friend studies the evolution of beetles, and shows you this phylogeny he reconstructed to depict their evolution based on antennal segments. You (politely) tell him that his phylogeny is INCORRECT. What explanation do you give your friend describes why the above phylogeny is INCORRECT? A. You should group all of the species together and find the average number of segments to determine the ancestral state B. All of the species should be grouped together because five segments and six segments are close enough. You should group the species with six segments together because six segments is the ancestral state. D. You should not group the species with five segments together because having 5 segments is the ancestral character state.

Answer 1

Option D is the reason

You should not group the species with five segments together because having 5 segments is the ancestral character state.

9n this phylogeny five antennal segments are ancestral character. So we can not further make this as a seprate group. All the bettels with 5 segments should be kept at the starting of phylogeny.