Comments on: What Is A New Species?

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:45:16 +0000

Mnynames: you could add to lions and tigers coyotes, red and gray wolves, which have apparently done quite a bit of crossbreeding in the wild. Interbreeding betwween the former two canids almost derailed the red wolf captive breeding program; between the latter two is considered to be one possible genesis of the eastern coyote.

Then you have horse plus donkey = mule…

I believe that the traditional definition separates animals that don’t normally interbreed with each other under natural conditions. One could argue that the destruction of the social systems of red and gray wolves over much of their original habitat could have led to in-extremis breeding with coyotes, which normally wolves will kill rather than socially interact with.

But yep, there seems to be a lot of Linnaean shifting going on, and the resolution might be….popular vote….sorry, Pluto…

By: Mnynames

Mnynames — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:16:29 +0000

The time is rapidly approaching when the zoological community is going to have to hold an international convention in order to determine exactly what comprises a species (Much as the International Astronomical Union recently did to define what is and is not a planet), because there are several different and conflicting definitions.

The generally accepted definition is any group of animals that is incapable of interbreeding with another group. I’d bet good money that all 16 of those different types of salamander are capable of interbreeding with one another, and do so, occasionally. So what does that mean for the DNA evidence? Do we just throw it out, and continue with our 19th century model? Further, Lions and Tigers (Most big cats, actually) can breed with one another, so are they all the same species? Clearly the old definition doesn’t work any more.

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:00:41 +0000

Insects are probably a ridiculously obvious example.

I have come home more than one time on a summer night in Maryland, a tropical hotspot teeming with ethnoknown species, and been pretty durn near convinced that one of the little buggers underneath my front porch light has never been seen by science. And of course I’ve never so much as gone for a net, despite the University of Maryland’s fine entomology department being almost literally a stone’s throw away.

I think that one of the reasons that we’ve developed a scientific blind spot to potential new species like the sasquatch is that people presume teeny critters are the only ones likely to go undiscovered these days. (Evidence from places like Vietnam to the contrary.) Another reason is that people take it for granted that only the extreme biodiversity and the natural camouflage provided by the rainforests can really conceal anything larger than an insect. As the Cypriot mouse disproves. And yeah, that’s a mouse, and it was probably ethnoknown, and how special does it look?

Anyway, there’s a “no way could this be out there” mentality that seems to prevail in conventional zoology now. When I’ve come to believe this: if you don’t want to see it, it could bring your mail up to your door and put it in your hand, and you won’t see it.

Shame, that.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:12:10 +0000

I am always interested in the existence of ethnoknown species out there. There are animals out there that are not new at all to the native populations and are only recognized as a new species when a scientist happens to come across them. I wonder how many new species are out there that are routinely seen, living right under our noses, but which are not recognized because a scientist has not properly found and documented it yet. I believe this happened with the Laotian rock rat. This just fascinates me. There is a bird that I have seen of late flying about my yard that is not like any bird I have seen before. I am sure everybody around here has seen it but nobody gives it any thought because we just assume it is a known creature or nobody really cares. Now I am sure that it is a known species, and this is just an example. But what if it was a new species? Unless an expert on birds (which I am not) came around and found it, it could be new undiscovered species living right under our noses in a fairly populated area that no expert has gotten around to coming to.