>>51573770>Some of them had to become tetrapods, then on earth, became reptiles, who then evolved into mammalOk before I explain anything else, that's wrong. The way we classify things by evolution is that everything that is everything that shares an ancestor is part of the group of that ancestor. It's why Birds are both Dinosaurs and Reptiles. For Mammals, our origins trace back to actually the same time the ancestors of reptiles trace to, because in reality it was Tetrapod Amniotes, our common ancestor which wasn't a reptile, branched into Synapsids and Sauropsids, which are respectfully, the ancestors of all living mammals, and all living reptiles.
Secondly, convergent evolution means its two branches of evolution converging onto eachother in some way. The actual distance between them doesn't matter. All the "crabs that aren't crabs" are still convergent evolution, doesn't matter if they're all crustaceans. In fact, scorpions and lobsters are an insanely good example. Because Crustaceans share an ancestor with Insects, who share an ancestor with centipedes/millipedes, who THEN share an ancestor with an extinct lineage, who THEN share one with the clade that has horseshoe crabs, mites, and arthropods. You wanna know how old the oldest fossils of those two lineages are? Over half a fucking billion years old. They literally could not be a more perfect example of convergent evolution. Seals are carnivores (by clade not diet), Whales and Dolphins are Ungulates, and they're also convergent with Sharks and extinct Ichthyosaurs and Mosasaurs. Convergence isn't whole bodyplans either. The beak in octopus and birds are convergence, sauropods and giraffe necks are convergence.
>>51573807Kangaroo rats are closer to pocket mice/rats (better rat/mouse convergence example) then to gophers, then to beavers. Mice and rats are closer to gerbils (better kangaroo rat convergence example) then to hamsters and lemmings, then to mole rats. It is in fact, examples of convergence.
