Comment on We WALK
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
It’s been ages since I’ve done any serious science schooling so I’m hoping some random Internet people can help me out.
When evolution like this occurs, it’s typically not one fish right? The idea is that several fish develop a trait that is beneficial that leads them away from water (or whatever), which they thrive in, causing them to reproduce with those same traits.
At what point do scientists say that enough change has occurred that they are a new species?
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
What separates species? Oh boy, do I not have an answer for you! We usually don’t have enough fossils to ask that question, and now that we’re cataloging so many fossils it’s starting to bring up questions like this.
We clearly have two gropus of T.rex skeletons, gracile and robust. Are they different sexes or different species? How about proposed Spinosaurus species, are those just interspecies variation? What about homonin fossils? We can’t even agree on the genus, let alone the species.
Well forget fossils, what about living species? Plants have shown an amazing ability to hybridize between very distinct groups, and animals can form ring species where two populations can’t interbreed, but can share genes through a string of other populations! How do you classify that‽
Great yt video on the concept of species if you have 15 minutes.