For instance, while i truly appreciate the significant amount of information relating to phylogenetic trees, if one were to read only your post, one could easily assume that what you state concerning them is what everyone who develops and uses them believes. I.e. everyone agrees. I know this is not the case. So do you. Now you may assume that anyone who understands them properly would of course offer consent to all you claim for them, we both also know this isn’t true. To briefly recap, where you state that as you develop lineages and gaps occur, you can thereby develop or theorize what those occupying said gaps would comprise. Then the science adventurers voyage out, and , amazingly (my word) find these gap fillers right where one would expect to find them. I know you are quite intelligent David, but this is one of those by now famous “just-so” stories. Science is seldom so tidy and neat. And what in the world are we doing with our 200 million plus fossils when we have so many gaps and ghost lineages left to fill in (and are unfortunately, or inadvertently, creating even more).