ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

PACMAD clade

Okay kiddo, so you know how there are lots of different animals in the world, like dogs and cats and birds? Well, some scientists like to study how all these animals are related to each other, kind of like figuring out who your family members are.

One group of animals that scientists have been studying a lot are called pacmads. These animals are actually types of snails, but not like the ones you see in your garden. Pacmads are found in the ocean and have special shells that are really cool to look at.

Scientists have been studying pacmads because they want to know how they evolved over time. Evolution means that animals change over a really long time to get better at surviving in their environment. Scientists can study the DNA, or genetic code, of different pacmads to see how they're related to each other and how they changed over time.

When scientists study pacmads, they find that there are different groups, or clades, of them. These clades are named after different parts of the world where the pacmads live. For example, there's the "Northwest Pacific clade" and the "Southeast Indian Ocean clade."

By studying these different clades, scientists can learn a lot about how animals change and evolve over time. It's really cool stuff!