'diagnostic traits' is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It can be used to describe a set of qualities that can be used to identify someone or something. For example, "He exhibited a number of diagnostic traits of a narcissistic personality disorder."
Embryological patterns and the anatomy of the reproductive system are also important diagnostic traits.
Slight changes in the rules followed by cell builders can cause radical shifts in the final nest architecture, and these are often used by humans as species diagnostic traits.
All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area.
Finally, we did not detect an overall developmental delay in any of several other diagnostic traits at these stages [11].
However, many morphological characters are under environmental influences and some true hybrids may not always display an intermediate phenotype if the diagnostic traits are not controlled by codominant genes or genes of additive effects [11].
It also provided additional, and in some cases unique, diagnostic traits for species resolution (e.g., Calamagrostis).
New and better specimens can show what the rest of an animal was like and provide information that would help split it from an existing species, or show that an apparently unique feature was common, removing a diagnostic trait.
It turns out that a number of Miocene ape species have independently acquired thick enamel, making it a difficult diagnostic trait for exclusive hominin status (Begun 2004).
However, as for dental enamel thickness, a number of Late Miocene apes (such as Oreopithecus) also have a reduced or absent canine premolar honing complex, which might also make this a problematic diagnostic trait (McNulty 2010).
This type of formation is a main diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area and recurs throughout Mesoamerica.
This pattern is also recurrent throughout Mesoamerica and is another diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.
