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Huh, narwhals and belugas aren't even in the same genus. Most well-known hybrids like tigers and lions, horses and donkeys, and tomatoes and potatoes have been
by kijin 7y ago
Huh, narwhals and belugas aren't even in the same genus. Most well-known hybrids like tigers and lions, horses and donkeys, and tomatoes and potatoes have been between species in the same genus. Maybe this discovery will prompt biologists to place narwhals and belugas in the same genus? It must be lonely being the sole member of a genus, after all.
- paulmd 7y agoby a strict definition of species, this means they are in fact the same species.
- avian 7y agoIf I recall my high school biology correctly, the strict definition also has the requirement that the offspring are able to reproduce themselves (hence making donkeys and horses separate species). The article mentions no evidence that in this case the hybrid was able to reproduce, since it's all based on the analysis of only one skull.
- SkyBelow 7y agoI'm not sure there is a strict definition of species. Take a ring species where A and B can interbreed and B and C can interbreed but A and C cannot. If some event kills all the B's, then you have two species instead of one. That you can make new species by killing only seems quite odd.
- CWuestefeld 7y ago"Ring species" are a fascinating thing, they really turn out to be a litmus test for testing notions of speciation. I think it turns out just that "species" is just a human construct. It's not something hard-and-fast that nature hews to. It's nothing but a construct we use for convenience in our drive for labels.
- toasterlovin 7y agoI think colors are a good analogy. Colors exist and are distinct at certain distances from each other, but things start to get blurry the closer two colors are to each other. For instance, is turquoise blue? Is it green? It's kinda both. Same with organisms and populations. The farther away (evolutionarily speaking) two populations of interbreeding organisms are, the easier it is to distinguish them into different species. The closer they are, the more things start to look like turquoise.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoWe don't really have a strict definition of species. It is notoriously hard to pin down.
- fouc 7y agoYeah I think they'd definitely be updating the taxonomy.
- koboll 7y agoDoes cross-breeding ability automatically mandate a shared genus? Could they have genetically drifted in enough ways to be in separate genuses, even if reproductive compatibility isn't one of those ways?