The molecular clock hypothesis postulates that the rate of evolution in a macromolecule is approximately constant per year over time and among different evolutionary lineages. While local clocks in closely related organisms with similar generation times can be useful for dating evolutionary events, strong evidence now suggests that no global or universal clock exists in mammals.
The rooted tree for species A, B and C, assuming that C is the known outgroup. O denotes the common ancestor of species A and B.
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