Paraphyletic groups

300px|thumb|Painting of Archaeopteryx by [[Heinrich Harder, from around 1916]] The Archaeornithes, classically Archæornithes, is an extinct group of the first primitive, reptile-like birds. It is an evolutionary grade of transitional fossils, the primitive birds halfway between non-avian dinosaur ancestors and the derived modern birds (avian dinosaur).

Brevirostres is an obsolete group of crocodilians that, as originally formulated, included alligatoroids and crocodyloids, but not gavialoids. Results of molecular phylogenetic analysis uniformly draw gavialoids and crocodyloids into a close relationship; in that case, Brevirostres becomes obsolete with Crocodilia.

Orthocerida, from Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós), meaning "straight", and κέρας (kéras), meaning "horn", also known as the Michelinocerida, is an order of extinct orthoceratoid cephalopods that lived from the Early Ordovician () possibly to the Late Triassic (). The Eocene fossil Antarcticeras is sometimes considered a descendant of the orthocerids although this is disputed. They were most common however from the Ordovician to the Devonian.

"Mesosuchia" is an obsolete name for a group of terrestrial, semi-aquatic, or fully aquatic crocodylomorph reptiles.

The Protocoleoptera are a paraphyletic group of extinct beetles, containing the earliest and most primitive lineages of beetles. They represented the dominant group of beetles during the Permian, but were largely replaced by modern beetle groups during the following Triassic. Protocoleopterans typically possess prognathous (horizontal) heads, distinctive elytra with regular window punctures, cuticles with tubercles or scales, as well as a primitive pattern of ventral sclerites, similar to the modern archostematan families Ommatidae and Cupedidae. They are thought to have been xylophagous and w

Notohippidae is a paraphyletic extinct family of notoungulate mammals from South America. Notohippids are known from the Eocene and Oligocene epochs.

non-monophyletic group of cyprinid fishes

The Protorthoptera are an extinct order of Palaeozoic insects, and represent a wastebasket taxon and paraphyletic assemblage of basal neoptera. They appear during the Middle Carboniferous (late Serpukhovian or early Bashkirian), making them among the earliest known winged insects in the fossil record. Pronotal lobes may be expanded to form a shield. The group includes the ancestors of all other polyneopterous insects.

Epoicotheriidae ("strange beasts") is an extinct paraphyletic family of insectivorous placental mammals within extinct order Palaeanodonta, that lived in North America, Asia and Europe from the middle Paleocene to early Oligocene. Epoicotheriids were fossorial mammals. Late Eocene/early Oligocene genera were highly specialized animals that were convergent with the talpids, golden moles and marsupial mole in the structure of their skulls and forelimbs, and would have had a similar lifestyle as subterranean burrowers. They are considered among the most specialized animals that have ever evolved

Odontornithes is an obsolete and disused taxonomic term proposed by Othniel Charles Marsh for birds possessing teeth, notably the genera Hesperornis and Ichthyornis from the Cretaceous deposits of Kansas.

Plagiaulacida is a group of extinct multituberculate mammals. Multituberculates were among the most common mammals of the Mesozoic, "the age of the dinosaurs". Plagiaulacids are a paraphyletic grouping, containing all multituberculates that lie outside of the advanced group Cimolodonta. They ranged from the Middle Jurassic Period to the early Late Cretaceous of the Northern Hemisphere. During the Cenomanian, they were replaced by the more advanced cimolodontans.

thumb|230px|Ichthyornis skeletons

The Bactritida are a small order of more or less straight-shelled (orthoconic) cephalopods that first appeared during the Emsian stage of the Devonian period (407 million years ago) with questionable origins in the Pragian stage before 409 million years ago, and persisted until the Carnian pluvial event in the upper middle Carnian stage of the Triassic period (231 million years ago). They are considered ancestors of the ammonoids, as well as of the coleoids (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and the extinct belemnites).

thumb|right|300px|Common bream caught in the Volga River near Kashin, Russia

Sauriurae (meaning "lizard tails" in Greek) is a now-deprecated subclass of birds created by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. It was intended to include Archaeopteryx and distinguish it from all other birds then known, which he grouped in the sister-group Ornithurae ("bird tails"). The distinction Haeckel referred to in this name is that Archaeopteryx possesses a long, reptile-like tail, while all other birds known to him had short tails with few vertebrae, fused at the end into a pygostyle. The unit was not much referred to, and when Hans Friedrich Gadow in 1893 erected Archaeornithes for basically the

"Roachoids", also known as "Roachids", "Blattoids" or Eoblattodea, are members of the stem group of Dictyoptera (the group containing modern cockroaches, termites and praying mantises). They generally resemble cockroaches, but most members, unlike modern dictyopterans, have generally long external ovipositors, and are thought not to have laid ootheca like modern dictyopterans.

Pufflegs are hummingbirds from the genera Eriocnemis and Haplophaedia. They occur in humid forest, woodland and shrub at altitudes of 1000 to 4800 m. asl in the Andes of Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. The males have a colorful green, coppery or blue plumage, and the females are generally somewhat duller. The most striking feature of both sexes is their dense snow-white leg puffs which consist of feather tufts that resemble woolly panties. One species – the black-thighed puffleg – is characterized by black coloured leg puffs, and another – the buff-thighed puffleg –

bird in the family Phasianidae

common name for several species of fish

Osteolepididae is a family of primitive, fish-like tetrapodomorphs (the clade that contains modern tetrapods and their extinct relatives) that lived during the Devonian period. The family is generally thought to be paraphyletic, with the traits that characterise the family being widely distributed among basal tetrapodomorphs and other osteichthyans. Some of the genera historically placed in Osteolepididae have more recently been assigned to the family Megalichthyidae, which appears to be a monophyletic group.

Gryposuchinae is an extinct subfamily of gavialid crocodylians. Gryposuchines lived mainly in the Miocene of South America. However, "Ikanogavialis" papuensis may have survived more recently, into the Late Pleistocene/Holocene. Most were long-snouted coastal forms. The group was named in 2007 and includes genera such as Gryposuchus and Aktiogavialis, although a 2018 study indicates that the group might be paraphyletic and rather an evolutionary grade towards the gharial.

Orthoceratoidea, from Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós), meaning "straight", and κέρας (kéras), meaning "horn", is a major subclass of nautiloid cephalopods. Members of this subclass usually have orthoconic (straight) to slightly cyrtoconic (curved) shells, and central to subcentral siphuncles which may bear internal deposits. Orthoceratoids are also characterized by dorsomyarian muscle scars (a small number of large scars concentrated at the top of the body chamber), extensive cameral deposits, and calciosiphonate connecting rings with a porous and calcitic inner layer.

freshwater fish

Halecostomi is the name of a group of neopterygian fish uniting the halecomorphs (represented by the living bowfin and many extinct groups) and the teleosts, the largest group of extant ray-finned fish.