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<blockquote data-quote="Kylie" data-source="post: 76868475" data-attributes="member: 343110"><p>The definition of "species" is a rather difficult one. It's typically defined as a group of individuals who can produce fertile offspring. So all the different kinds of dogs are considered the same species, since you can breed a Dalmatian and a German Shephard and the puppies will be fertile themselves. But the example you used a while back with horses and donkeys producing mules, well, since mules themselves are sterile, then horses and donkeys are considered different species.</p><p></p><p>But it all depends on how closely related two groups are. Let's say you have a population, and they are divided for some reason. Let's say that a river changes course during a flood, and now you have two groups, one on each side of the river, and they can't interbreed any more. Each population will now evolve in their own way, and since conditions on the different sides may be different, the two different populations will evolve to suit the unique pressures they face, and thus they will gradually become more and more different.</p><p></p><p>If you come back ten years after the separation and take a female from the north side and a male from the south side, they'd probably still be able to interbreed. That wouldn't be enough time for them to evolve apart enough to make them different species. But if you come back a thousand years later, you could find that there's more trouble getting them to breed successfully. And if you came back a million years after, you'd probably find they wouldn't be able to interbreed at all.</p><p></p><p>But there's no one point where it stops being Species A and becomes Species B. Even if we look at a single population and consider individuals who are isolated not by space, but by time, we'd see the same thing. You could follow a group of animals and watch as they evolve over a million generations. G1 would be able to breed with G2 (and several generations down the line too). G15 would be able to interbreed with both G14 and G16. G165,287 would be able to interbreed with G165,286 and G165,288. But you would likely find that G165,287 could NOT breed with G1. Even though each generation changes only slightly, those slight changes all add up. Over a small number of generations, those changes are not enough to prevent successful breeding, but over many generations, those changes can be enough to prevent it.</p><p></p><p>So, to get back to your question, the tuskless variant wouldn't be considered a separate species, For that to happen, the tuskless elephants would need to be different enough from the tusked elephants that interbreeding could not produce fertile offspring.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Kylie, post: 76868475, member: 343110"] The definition of "species" is a rather difficult one. It's typically defined as a group of individuals who can produce fertile offspring. So all the different kinds of dogs are considered the same species, since you can breed a Dalmatian and a German Shephard and the puppies will be fertile themselves. But the example you used a while back with horses and donkeys producing mules, well, since mules themselves are sterile, then horses and donkeys are considered different species. But it all depends on how closely related two groups are. Let's say you have a population, and they are divided for some reason. Let's say that a river changes course during a flood, and now you have two groups, one on each side of the river, and they can't interbreed any more. Each population will now evolve in their own way, and since conditions on the different sides may be different, the two different populations will evolve to suit the unique pressures they face, and thus they will gradually become more and more different. If you come back ten years after the separation and take a female from the north side and a male from the south side, they'd probably still be able to interbreed. That wouldn't be enough time for them to evolve apart enough to make them different species. But if you come back a thousand years later, you could find that there's more trouble getting them to breed successfully. And if you came back a million years after, you'd probably find they wouldn't be able to interbreed at all. But there's no one point where it stops being Species A and becomes Species B. Even if we look at a single population and consider individuals who are isolated not by space, but by time, we'd see the same thing. You could follow a group of animals and watch as they evolve over a million generations. G1 would be able to breed with G2 (and several generations down the line too). G15 would be able to interbreed with both G14 and G16. G165,287 would be able to interbreed with G165,286 and G165,288. But you would likely find that G165,287 could NOT breed with G1. Even though each generation changes only slightly, those slight changes all add up. Over a small number of generations, those changes are not enough to prevent successful breeding, but over many generations, those changes can be enough to prevent it. So, to get back to your question, the tuskless variant wouldn't be considered a separate species, For that to happen, the tuskless elephants would need to be different enough from the tusked elephants that interbreeding could not produce fertile offspring. [/QUOTE]
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