Polytomy
![Cladograms B and C contain polytomies, where more than one branch descends from a single node.](/Images/godic/202502/03/Polytomies0157.jpg")
In biology, a polytomy /pəˈlɪtəmi/ is a section of a phylogeny in which the relationships cannot be fully resolved to dichotomies, thus giving many temporally based branches. They present an analytical problem, but can usually be better studied by utilizing more flexible phylogenetic network software such as SplitsTree, which can represent some polytomies as median networks.