. . "A clade (from Ancient Greek: \u03BA\u03BB\u03AC\u03B4\u03BF\u03C2, 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."@en .