Cladograms of Groups of  Living Organisms

Teaching the major groups of life and their inherent relationships to undergraduates is difficult because, even though it has been 25 years since many of the major groups and their relationships were discovered,  college textbooks (in general) still tend to cling to outdated information and concepts with respect to the evolution of life and its products.  Thus, I have constructed these illustrations as a part of an integrated program that I developed for teaching basic biology at the undergraduate level.  I have used these illustrations in several semesters of teaching Introductory Biology at the University of Florida and some have been used by my colleagues at other universities.  The illustrations on each of the cladograms are from many sources (cited at the bottom) and I must stress that these citations should be kept with them.  This also means that it is probably unrealistic to use these legally in any profit making enterprise.  I encourage their use in all teaching otherwise.
 
 

  The Three Major Clades of Life

  The Basal Clades of Green Plants

  The Basal Clades of Land Plants

   The Basal Clades of "Animals"

Cladogram from the Beginning of Life to the Poaceae

Relationships of the Subfamilies of the Poaceae

The cladograms above are abstracted for teaching.  The major clades of life are well illustrated at the following excellent web sites:

The Tree of  Life (The most complete reference available for the relationship of all living things to each other)

The California Museum of  Paleontology  (This site also gives a lucid description of modern principles of phylogenetic inference)