Class Reptilia includes all reptiles, and Class Aves includes all birds. However, a cladistics approach would place birds in the same class with reptiles. Why would a cladistician classify birds and reptiles in a single class despite the behavioral and physical differences between the two?
What will be an ideal response?
The degree of evolutionary relatedness is all that matters in cladistics, not behavior or structural similarities. Birds must share a common ancestor with reptiles after another group of reptiles diverged. Birds therefore form an ingroup, not an outgroup, of reptiles.
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