The Uniquely Evolved Character Concept and its Cladistic Application

Abstract

A new concept based on Dollo's Law, the uniquely evolved character concept, is defined; it can be applied only to characters involving evolution of a structural character or development of a new enzymatic pathway. From this, a new method of trying to establish cladistic relationships has been developed and studied with the same published data on taxa of orthopteroid insects as used in my earlier paper (Le Quesne, 1972).