Fig. 6

Question development using published phylogeny of vertebrate taxa, assessment trees, and images. a Taxa selected from a vertebrate phylogeny (modified from Fig. 1 in Meyer and Zardoya 2003) with selected clades color-coded. b Assessment categories for each taxonomic group. c Taxa selected for the assessment question: coelacanth (focal; green), frog (MCR; green), grouper (similarity; purple), ray (proximity; blue), and lamprey (node counting; yellow). d A color-coded rooted tree, A.1 (Figs. 3, 4a). e Assessment tree developed with tree A.1.1 (Fig. 4a). The assessment tree is configured by branch addition and clade rotation about nodes so taxa acting as distracters in the question represent their respective incorrect strategy. Sample question: Who is most closely related to the Coelacanth? a. Lamprey, b. Ray, c. Frog, d. Grouper