The Hubble tuning fork diagram, based on morphology, has always been the
preferred scheme for classification of galaxies and is still the only one
originally built from historical/evolutionary relationships. At the opposite,
biologists have long taken into account the parenthood links of living entities
for classification purposes. Assuming branching evolution of galaxies as a
"descent with modification", we show that the concepts and tools of
phylogenetic systematics widely used in biology can be heuristically transposed
to the case of galaxies. This approach that we call "astrocladistics" has been
first applied to Dwarf Galaxies of the Local Group and provides the first
evolutionary galaxy tree. The cladogram is sufficiently solid to support the
existence of a hierarchical organization in the diversity of galaxies, making
it possible to track ancestral types of galaxies. We also find that morphology
is a summary of more fundamental properties. Astrocladistics applied to
cosmology simulated galaxies can, unsurprisingly, reconstruct the correct
"genealogy". It reveals evolutionary lineages, divergences from common
ancestors, character evolution behaviours and shows how mergers organize galaxy
diversity. Application to real normal galaxies is in progress. Astrocladistics
opens a new way to analyse galaxy evolution and a path towards a new
systematics of galaxies
