Free Phylogenetic Tree Maker
Describe your organisms or sequences and get a publication-ready phylogenetic tree in seconds. No bioinformatics software, no account, no cost.
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A phylogenetic tree is a branching diagram that shows the evolutionary relationships among organisms, genes, or sequences. Each branch point (node) represents a common ancestor, and branch lengths reflect the degree of evolutionary divergence. Our free phylogenetic tree maker converts a plain-language description of your taxa or sequences into a properly structured tree diagram following Newick/NHX conventions, with bootstrap support values, scale bars, and clade annotations.
How to make a phylogenetic tree in 4 steps
Describe your taxa or sequences
Type a description of the organisms, genes, or sequences you want to relate — list the species or group names, mention any known relationships or outgroups, and specify if you want branch lengths or bootstrap support values included.
Generate the tree
Click Generate and the AI produces a phylogenetic tree in Newick-compatible notation rendered as a visual diagram. Nodes are labeled with taxon names, branch lengths reflect relative divergence, and bootstrap values are annotated at internal nodes where specified.
Review the topology
Check that the branching order (topology) reflects known evolutionary relationships for your group. Verify the outgroup is placed correctly at the root, and that any clade groupings you expected are present in the tree.
Export for publication or teaching
Download the tree as an image for papers, presentations, or educational materials. No account required — just describe, generate, and export.
What is a phylogenetic tree?
A phylogenetic tree (also called a phylogeny or cladogram) is a diagram that represents the evolutionary history of a group of organisms or sequences. It is one of the most fundamental tools in modern biology, used to understand how species diverged from common ancestors, how genes spread through populations, how viruses mutate across outbreaks, and how languages or cultures share historical roots.
The standard format for encoding phylogenetic trees is the Newick format — a parenthetical notation that lists taxa in nested groups with branch lengths and labels. Extended Newick (NHX) format adds annotations such as bootstrap support values (a statistical measure of confidence in each branch, typically expressed as a percentage from 0 to 100) and species metadata. Most phylogenetics software, including MEGA, RAxML, IQ-TREE, and FigTree, reads and writes Newick/NHX files.
Phylogenetic trees can be rooted (with a designated ancestral outgroup) or unrooted (showing relationships without implying an ancestor). Branch lengths are typically expressed in substitutions per site for molecular phylogenies, or in millions of years for time-calibrated phylogenies. Clade support is often visualized with colored arcs or shaded regions grouping related taxa.
Our free phylogenetic tree maker is designed for biologists, bioinformaticians, ecology researchers, and biology educators who need a clear tree diagram quickly. Whether you are preparing a figure for a research paper, illustrating a lecture on evolutionary biology, or exploring relationships among newly sequenced organisms, describe your taxa and receive a properly structured phylogenetic tree you can use immediately.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a phylogenetic tree and a cladogram?
A cladogram shows only the branching pattern (topology) of evolutionary relationships without indicating the amount of change along each branch — all branches are drawn the same length. A phylogenetic tree (phylogram) encodes branch lengths that represent the amount of evolutionary change (substitutions per site) or time (millions of years) along each lineage. Both show the same topology, but a phylogram conveys more quantitative information.
What are bootstrap support values?
Bootstrap support values are a statistical measure of confidence in a branch of the phylogenetic tree. They are generated by resampling the alignment data many times (typically 1000 replicates) and asking how often the same branch appears. A value of 100 means the branch appeared in every replicate (very well supported); a value below 70 is generally considered weakly supported. They are typically shown at internal nodes.
What is an outgroup in a phylogenetic tree?
An outgroup is a taxon known to be less closely related to the group of interest (the ingroup) than any ingroup members are to each other. Placing an outgroup in the tree allows it to be rooted — the root is placed on the branch separating the outgroup from the ingroup. For example, when studying great apes, gibbons or Old World monkeys are often used as an outgroup.
Can I use this for non-biological data like language families?
Yes. Phylogenetic trees are used in historical linguistics to show how languages diverged from a common ancestral language (e.g. Proto-Indo-European), in cultural evolution studies, and in any domain where hierarchical divergence from a common ancestor can be modeled. Describe your entities and their known relationships and the generator will produce the appropriate tree structure.
What is Newick format?
Newick format is the standard text-based representation of phylogenetic trees. It encodes a tree as nested parentheses where each pair of parentheses groups a clade, taxa are listed as their names, branch lengths follow a colon, and the whole tree ends with a semicolon. For example: ((Human:0.01, Chimpanzee:0.01):0.02, Gorilla:0.03); represents a simple three-taxon tree.
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