Sir

In your News story 'Top billing for platypus at end of evolution tree' (Nature 453, 138–139; 2008), the graphic depicting genome status presents a shocking new phylogeny of the Vertebrates — with Archosaurs (birds and crocodilians) and Mammals forming a monophyletic group.

The bad news is that this dramatic new 'proposal' is completely adrift from the research Article by Wesley C. Warren and colleagues that the figurative tree is intended to illustrate (Nature 453, 175–183; 2008), and it continues a persistent tendency in popular literature to portray all evolution as leading towards humans.

The good news is that figures 1 and 4 in the original Article both correctly show the properly supported phylogeny that holds the Archosaurs as sister group to the Turtle + Diapsid clade. Even better news is that a news story that appeared in Science the following day (Science 320, 730; 2008) about the platypus research also showed a cladogram containing essentially the same error. One wonders whether the similarity in errors between the two news stories is an example of homology or homoplasy.