That this is rare is beside the point. It shouldn’t happen if the Darwinian idea of species is clear enough to be a valid science concept.
Tag: hybridization
At Nautilus: Do butterflies challenge the meaning of “species”?
Yes, of course they do. But imagine anyone asking such a question years ago for any purpose except to show that it ain’t so: Stamp OUT Darwin Doubt!! was the permitted approach. But now we read doubt about Darwinian speciation in typical think mags.
Female fish mate OUTSIDE their species?
But the cichlids were absolutely POSTER fish for natural selection acting on random mutation (Darwinism) to produce new species! If even cichlids can’t do Darwinism reliably, how important a vector in evolution can it be?
Darwinism is dead and the butterflies did it
No, but seriously, if “‘species’ are simply not what we thought they were,” as the researchers’ media release reads, all those carefully thought-out explanations of the neo-Darwinian origin of various butterfly traits must compete with “a complete morass of inter-connectedness.” Darwinism is dying and people are wisely refraining from spelling that out.
First-ever natural narwhal-beluga hybrid found, has bizarre teeth
For all we know, this type of hybridization could be common. If it’s a bottom dweller, who was looking? Maybe hybridization plays a bigger role in evolution than we supposed. And then schoolbook Darwinism plays a smaller one.
The python family tree is, um, “tangled”
The pythons invading Florida have been found to be Burmese-Indian hybrids, which means that they may be more adaptable than hoped. From ScienceDaily: The study also found that at least a few of the snakes in the invasive South Florida population are not 100 percent Burmese pythons. Instead, the genetic evidence shows at least 13 Read More…
Claim: Hybridization “boosts evolution” in cichlids
From ScienceDaily: Animals that have either migrated to or been introduced in Central Europe — such as the Asian bush mosquito or the Asian ladybeetle — feel extremely comfortable in their new homes due to changing climatic conditions. If these newcomers are genetically compatible with local species, they may crossbreed and produce hybrids, which can Read More…