MRCA
From Palaeos.org
The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of any set of organisms is the most recent individual which is an ancestor of all of them, except itself.
Although the term is frequently used for humans, it will be used on Palaeos org to designate the common ancestor of entire clades.
The concept of a "most recent common ancestor" is described in Richard Dawkins' book, The Ancestor's Tale, in which he imagines a backwards 'pilgrimage' in time, during which we humans 'meet' all the other species of organism with which we share a common ancestor. Dawkins coined the word, concestor, as an alternative to MRCA.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Most recent common ancestor" This page MAK061004
