However, zygomycota has been identified as polyphyletic, and is not included in modern fungal classification systems.
Researchers concerned more with ecology than with systematics may take polyphyletic groups as legitimate subject matter; the similarities in activity within the fungus group Alternaria, for example, can lead researchers to regard the group as a valid genus while acknowledging its polyphyly.
Phalagnostus nudus, the type species, was originally described as a species of Battus by Beyrich in 1845, but that name had already been used for a butterfly, and the trilobite genus was also deemed polyphyletic.
The monophyly of Euphorbiaceae had long been held in doubt by some, but the first strong evidence of its polyphyly came in 1993 with the first maximum parsimony analysis of DNA sequences of the gene rbcL from a large number of seed plants.
Genetic analysis revealed that Centaurium was polyphyletic, made up of plants that could be grouped into four clades.