The phrase "modern descendants" refers to the living individuals or groups who are directly related to someone or something from the past. They carry the bloodline or heritage of those who came before them. Full definition
This relative lack of modern diversity stands out in stark contrast to that of their close relatives, the dinosaurs, whose modern descendants, the birds, have about 10,000 species around today! (palaeontologyonline.com)
The basic political premise of techno - politics is that the classic question regarding competing claims to rule has been decisively answered: instead of Plato's philosopher king we get its emasculated modern descendant, the rational bureaucrat. (firstthings.com)
Dr David Poznik, from Stanford University, California, first author on the paper, said: «We identified more than 60,000 positions where one DNA letter was replaced by another in a man with modern descendants, and we discovered thousands of more complex DNA variants. (sciencedaily.com)