Total group
In phylogenetics, the crown group of a collection of species consists of the living representatives of the collection together with their ancestors back to their most recent common ancestor as well as all of that ancestor's descendants. It is thus a clade, a group consisting of a species and all its descendants.
The concept was developed by Willi Hennig, the formulator of phylogenetic systematics, as a way of classifying living organisms relative to their extinct relatives in his "Die Stammesgeschichte der Insekten", and the "crown" and "stem" group terminology was coined by R. P. S. Jefferies in 1979. Though formulated in the 1970s, the term was not commonly used until its reintroduction in 2000 by Graham Budd and Sören Jensen.
It is not necessary for a species to have living descendants in order for it to be included in the crown group. Extinct side branches on the family tree that are descended from the most recent common ancestor of living members will still be part of a crown group. For example, if we consider the crown-birds (i.e. all extant birds and the rest of the family tree back to their most recent common ancestor), extinct side branches like the dodo or great auk are still descended from the most recent common ancestor of all living birds, so fall within the bird crown group. One very simplified cladogram for birds is shown below:
other extinct groups
Neornithes (modern birds, some extinct like the dodo)
In this diagram, the clade labelled "Neornithes" is the crown group of birds: it includes the most recent common ancestor of all living birds and its descendants, living or not. Although considered to be birds (i.e. members of the clade Aves), Archaeopteryx and other extinct groups are not included in the crown group, as they fall outside the Neornithes clade, being descended from an earlier ancestor.
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