Based on this evidence and on the strong evidence that the very simplified PECA muscle anatomy of Neoceratodus is a derived characteristic of dipnoans (see SI for details; see also in ref. 35), we propose that the characteristic muscle configuration of the tetrapod limbs arose through a series of stepwise changes from the last common ancestor (LCA) of extant osteichthyans to the LCA of tetrapods.
Given the relationship of Kiwi with the extinct Moa and the extant ratites, which have been noted for their large eyes [31], it seems safe to conclude that reduced reliance upon visual information is a derived characteristic in Kiwi and is probably an example of adaptive regressive evolution [32].
Our phylogenetic reconstructions indicate, therefore, that cyclin dependence is a derived characteristic.
Mapping biological properties onto this phylogeny reveals that manipulation of host reproduction, characteristic of Wolbachia strains, is a derived characteristic.
To test whether the lack of CNE on Hs-Y is a derived characteristic of vertebrate hemizygous sex chromosomes, we further screened the sex chromosomes of chimpanzee, mouse as well as the W chromosome of chicken.
Despite the incompleteness of functional information, the phylogenetic tree presented in Figure 5 suggests that synthesis of paucimanosidic glycans is a derived characteristic that has evolved independently on at least 3 occasions.
Because synteny of syndecan-2 and -3 genes is conserved between tetrapods and pufferfish, and because all four syndecan gene loci show evidence of paralogy in tetrapods, we inferred that the absence of syndecan-1 from fish is a derived characteristic.
In this sense, considering only the frequency of this muscle in primates, PL would be more degenerative in Gorilla sp. Also, if degeneration is considered a derived characteristic of PL, it is more derived in Gorilla sp. than in other primates and modern humans.
There is some debate over whether bat echolocation is (1) a derived characteristic not present in the common ancestor that has subsequently evolved in multiple echolocating lineages by convergent evolution, or (2) was present in the ancestral species then selectively lost (Teeling 2009).
Length-reduced rRNA appears to be a derived, primarily metazoan characteristic: Essentially all other taxonomic groups contain roughly the same amount of rRNA as the ancestral bacterial ribosome.
