Alteratives

Cladistics (Ancient Greek: κλάδος, klados, "branch") is an approach to biological classification in which items are grouped together based on whether or not they have one or more shared unique characteristics that come from the group's last common ancestor and are not present in more distant ancestors. Therefore, members of the same group are thought to share a common history and are considered to be more closely related.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics