These all look like _a_ species to you? (the gallery)
http://www.farmertodd.com/Freshwater/Rainbowfish/Default2.asp
They look pretty danged different to me. We're not talking about angled
check marks on the cheek of a darter that may or may not be present, are we?
:)
Really what it comes down to... Is as soon as you make a "rule" about
nature... It has a tendency to break it. This is why I like Peter Unmack's
definition from the last time we discussed this. It's non-specific to
mechanism or anatomy, etc, but still says exactly what you were trying to
describe.
"A species describes a like evolutionary history and relationship among
organisms" or something to that effect.
On the other hand... and I just did this ha. It becomes even more
confounded when people who've seemed to lost the ability to say "I don't
know" find ingenius ways of saying it without using those words in that
order <evil grin>
Todd
The Just say "it's pretty"! Say "it's pretty"! Madness, Toledo, OH
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
http://www.farmertodd.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Stallsmith" <fundulus at hotmail.com>
To: <nanfa-l at nanfa.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Moribund fish & Life Outside
> Largely it depends on reproduction. Mayr's Biological Species Concept
> defines species by who is mating with whom. This is fine for, say, birds
or
> mammals, but is totally useless for asexual organisms like bacteria,
molds,
> many fungi, and large swaths of the Protista like diatoms or euglenids who
> reproduce sexually but not with distinct male/female sexes (imagine
> everything you know is wrong...).
>
> Even with sexual species, arguments can be made to define species as
> individuals who share a recent common pattern of descent as a primary
> determinant rather than considering only where and when sex takes place.
> This is, of course, the core cladistic argument, and with tropical
beetles,
> say, if you have a recent collection of thousands of individuals
> representing small grades of difference, you can assign species based on
> physical traits without spending several lifetimes ascertaining details of
> sexual patterns. (Yes, I'm talking about Willi Hennig here...)
>
> --Bruce Stallsmith
> a buncha species in the Tennessee
> Huntsville, AL, US of A
>
> >From: Irate Mormon <archimedes at bayspringstel.net>
> >Reply-To: nanfa-l at nanfa.org
> >To: "nanfa-l at nanfa.org" <nanfa-l at nanfa.org>
> >Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Moribund fish & Life Outside
> >Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 22:13:30 -0400
> >
> >Quoting Bruce Stallsmith <fundulus at hotmail.com>:
> >
> > > Different species concepts apply to different organisms.
> >
> >I don't understand - how can that be?
> >
> >--Irate
> >
> >"You can stop kicking this dead whale down the beach and find another
hobby
> >horse to beat to death."
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/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
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