Spathorhynchus [SEP] parent taxon
Spathorhynchus
Spathorhynchus is an extinct genus of amphisbaenians or worm lizards that existed from the Middle Eocene to the Early Oligocene in what is now Wyoming. It includes two species, the type species "S. fossorium", named in 1973 from the Middle Eocene Bridger and Wind River Formations, and the species "S. natronicus", named in 1977 from the Lower Oligocene White River Formation. "Spathorhynchus" belongs to the family Rhineuridae, which includes many other extinct species that ranged across North America at various times in the Cenozoic but
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of