Definition of "phyla" [phyla]

• Plural of phylum. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But Darwin knew that the major animal groups-which modern biologists call "phyla" - appeared fully formed in what were at the time the earliest known fossil-bearing rocks, deposited during a geological period known as the Cambrian."
• "The organisms within each kingdom can then be further divided into different groups called phyla (fie 'luh), the singular of which is phylum (fie' lum)."
• "Neo-Darwinism and front-loaded hypotheses expect the opposite pattern, a ‘bottom-up’ pattern in which small differences in form accumulate first differentiating species and genera from each other and then only much later building to the large-scale differences in form that differentiate higher taxonomic categories such as phyla and classes."