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I don't think the concept of a species is well defined. Tiger and lions can interbreed, as can donkeys and horses. And then there are ring species. Biology does
by noelwelsh 9y ago
I don't think the concept of a species is well defined. Tiger and lions can interbreed, as can donkeys and horses. And then there are ring species. Biology does whatever it does and then humans try to fit words around it.
Edit: correct mules to horses
- mhluongo 9y agoYou're thinking donkeys and horses. I believe a mule is the sterile result of that interbreeding.
- sampo 9y agoMules are mostly sterile, but not 100%. Wikipedia reports some cases where female mules have produced offspring.
- tabtab 9y agoInterbreeding can be ranked on a scale. The less related the groups are, the more problems there are with reproducing. Perhaps a hard boundary of "species" can be drawn where the probability of successful offspring approaches zero. However, that's difficult to measure in practice.