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monotypic taxon
Sign in to savetaxonomic group which contains only one immediately subordinate taxon (according to the referenced point of view)
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- taxon
Show 2 more facts
- topic's main category
- Category:Monotypic taxa
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
The cuckoo-roller is the sole member of its genus, family, and order. In biology, for ranks such as genus or family, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. In the case of genera, the term "unispecific" or "monospecific" is sometimes preferred. In botanical nomenclature, a monotypic genus is a genus in the special case in which a genus and a single species are simultaneously described. The term monotypic may be used somewhat differently for species, where a monotypic species may be the only one in its genus.
Theoretical implications
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “monotypic taxon” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.