By having that phylogeny, you can make predictions and test map those various color characters onto the phylogentic tree...

and see how many times those brightly colored patterns have evolved. You can look at more closely related species, that are more closely related to each other than to anything else, compare their color patterns, and determine what kinds of conclusions you can come to with respect to the evolution of color patterns.

Well, one of the things that you find in nudibranchs and a lot of other marine organisms which are also brightly colored, is that sometimes they have very similar color patterns. This is a species of flatworm and this is a species of nudibranch. Both of these were found within a few meters of each other on a reef in the tropical waters of the Philippines. You can see they have very similar color patterns. Well, we don't know what particular species this one is most closely related to nor do we know what particular species this flatworm is closely related to. But we certainly know enough about the mollusks and the platyhelminthese to know that these two organisms are in no way closely related to each other compared to other organisms to which they're related. And there are no other members of this genus that have even a remotely similar color pattern. There are no other species of flatworms that we know of that have a similar color pattern.

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