plesiomorphic

comparative more plesiomorphic · superlative most plesiomorphic

1. Sharing a character state with an ancestral clade; primitive.

   "The cranium is clearly plesiomorphic in overall form, presenting primitive traits shared by earlier hominins," the authors wrote.

   2025 September 27, Julia Jacobo, “Million-year-old skull could rewrite timeline of human origin, researchers say”, in ABC News, archived from the original on 14 Feb 2026

   1 more example

   [T]he cockroach Polyphaga may represent a condition more plesiomorphic than in other Dictyoptera, but it could as well be paedomorphic, and therefore more derived than in other Dictyoptera [72].

   2000, Christine A. Nalepa, Claudio Bandi, “Paedomorphosis and Termite Evolution”, in Termites: Evolution, Sociality, Symbioses, Ecology, →ISBN, page 68

2. Plesiomorphous.