King Phillip Came Over For Good Spaghetti!
When thinking about evolutionary theory and how all living things are connected, it is important to show visual relationships between different species of organisms.
According to the University of California Museum of Paleotnology (2013), using trees for classification provides the user with the visual ability to see connections between evolutionary histories, common traits and characterists between species, and the general classification of living things.
So what does King Phillip have to do with phylogenetic trees?
It is an acronym for the classification system!
King - Kingdom
Phillip - Phylum
Came - Class
Over - Order
For - Family
Good - Genus
Spaghetti - Species
References:
"Using the tree for classification." (2013). Understanding Evolution. University of California Museum of Paleotnology. 25 November 2013. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_10
I thought this was a great picture to add because it shows the African and Asian elephants as their own species, a more recent discovery.