Asked by crystal

Mike is studying the phylogenetic tree for big cats.
A big cat phylogenetic tree is shown. A bracket goes to clouded leopard and to another bracket. That bracket goes to 2 additional brackets. One bracket goes to tiger and snow leopard. The other bracket goes to janguar and another bracket. The other bracket has lion and leopard.

He made several statements about the tree. Which statement is not true?
The leopard is more closely related to the jaguar than to the snow leopard.
The leopard is more closely related to the tiger than to the clouded leopard.
The leopard is more closely related to the snow leopard than to the clouded leopard.
The leopard is more closely related to the tiger than to the snow leopard.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
The false statement is:
"The leopard is more closely related to the tiger than to the snow leopard."

Reason: tiger and snow leopard are sister taxa (they share the same node). The leopard's most recent common ancestor with the tiger is the same node as its most recent common ancestor with the snow leopard, so the leopard is equally related to the tiger and the snow leopard.