A Taxon of Rigid Nosed Sea Creatures

"A Taxon of Rigid Nosed Sea Creatures" is one of the many bottle messages, found among various Relics in the Relic section.

Contents
May 4th

The stronger-armed of the crew managed to gather another specimen today. I don't even know how they could have seen through that great dark enough to find the thing. A Sea Goblin, they called the beast. That great long cartilaginous nose!

What I had believed to be a unique autapomorphic character of the swordfish now appears to be synapomorphic. But then what of the narwhals? The only shared trait is that devastating facial protrusion. The cladists would call it polyphyletic. I'd much sooner call it convergent.

-C. Erasmus Dourwind