A Phylogenetic Analysis of the Caminalcules. I. The Data Base

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Abstract
The Caminalcules are a group of organisms generated artificially according to principles believed to resemble those operating in real organisms. A re-analysis of an earlier data matrix of the Caminalcules revealed some inconsistencies and errors which necessitated recording of some characters. The resulting differences with earlier results are minor. The images of all 77 Caminalcules are featured, those of the 48 fossil spp. for the 1st time. The characters of the Caminalcules are defined and a data matrix is furnished for all Recent and fossil species. A new phenetic standard is proposed for the Caminalcules which divides them into 2 genera. The true cladogram is revealed for the 1st time. Recent Caminalcules have evolved over 19 time periods. Five branches correspond to the phenetic genera but originate at greatly differing time periods. Four lines terminate in fossils. A series of measures for quantifying evolutionary change is defined, including measures for homoplasy, parallelism and reversal. A survey was made of these measures and of other statistics relevant to systematics for 19 data sets from the numerical taxonomic literature. The Caminalcules were compatible to data sets on real organisms with respect to all these measures, as well as with respect to evolutionary rates and species longevities. Questions raised by an analysis of the Caminalcules should be of interest to systematics concerned with the analysis of data sets on real organisms.

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