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Paraphyly or paraphyletic is a term used in phylogenetics which is a study of evolutionary patterns and relationships among organisms. For a group of organisms to be considered paraphyletic, it must have the most recent common ancestry of that group but not all of its descendants. This suggests that some of the descendants of common ancestry are excluded from the paraphyletic group on the basis of certain characteristics or traits they possess that the included members of the group do not.

This form of classification raised a problematic approach in taxonomy as it may lead to confusion about the evolutionary relationship among included organisms.