A clade (from Ancient Greek: κλάδος, klados, "branch") is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single "branch" on the "tree of life".The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, a species (extinct or extant), and so on right up to a kingdom. Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches.