What are the major clades?

This following figure is a modification of the summaries of Giribet et al. (2007) and Valentine (2004) in which the Animal Kingdom is monophyletic and forms four major clades: the CHOANOFLAGELLATES (CHOANOZOA), PARAZOA (Clade 2), RADIATA (Clade 4), and BILATERIA (Clade 5).

What are valid clades?

A valid clade is monophyletic, it consists of the ancestor species and all its descendants.

How many clades are there?

Just like there are different types of families, there are different types of clades. The three major types are: monophyletic, paraphyletic and polyphyletic. Monophyletic refers to just one clade; meaning these terms are interchangeable.