wastebasket taxon

English

Noun

wastebasket taxon (plural wastebasket taxa)

  1. (informal) A taxon that exists only to classify organisms that do not fit anywhere else, being either paraphyletic or polyphyletic and therefore not considered valid under modern rules of taxonomy.
    • 2011, Matt Cartmill, Fred H. Smith, The Human Lineage‎, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
      Extinct forms like Dimetrodon and Velociraptor are grouped with their living relatives. Therefore, the wastebasket taxon Reptilia is replaced by the clades Diapsida and Synapsida, and birds are classified as dinosaurs.

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