Cladogram Maker

A cladogram is a diagram that maps the evolutionary relationships among species or groups by showing their shared derived characters at each branching node. Unlike phylogenetic trees, cladograms do not indicate the amount of evolutionary change — they show relatedness only. SciFig's cladogram maker generates accurate branching diagrams from a plain-language description of your taxa and traits.

Students often ask how to make a cladogram when all they have is a character chart, and the answer is to work directly from that table. List your taxa and their shared derived characters, then describe the pattern to SciFig. The cladogram maker arranges the branching diagram so that groups sharing more characters are placed closer together. You can relabel nodes, adjust branch order, and export a finished cladogram for your report or assignment.

A cladogram shows only the branching pattern of evolutionary relationships without indicating evolutionary distance or time. A phylogenetic tree may add branch lengths proportional to evolutionary change. SciFig's cladogram maker produces the simplified branching diagram most commonly required in biology courses and taxonomy papers.

Each node, or branch point, in a cladogram represents a hypothetical common ancestor shared by all the taxa that emerge from it. The shared derived characters that unite a group at a node are called synapomorphies. SciFig lets you label nodes and synapomorphies clearly so the evolutionary logic is easy to follow.

Cladograms are used in comparative biology, taxonomy, zoology, botany, paleontology, and genetics to represent hypotheses about evolutionary history. They also appear in ecology and biogeography. SciFig's cladogram maker supports all these contexts — describe your organisms and shared traits and generate a cladogram ready for your paper.

Start at the root, which represents the most ancient common ancestor. Each split into two branches is a node. Taxa that share a more recent node are more closely related. Traits listed at a node are shared by all taxa above it. SciFig generates a clearly labeled cladogram so each branch and node is immediately readable.