Re:Animal painting found in cave is 44k years old
by i386 on Thursday December 12, 2019 @08:15PM
(#21778263)
There are many species that are separated by 100K/1M years that are still able to interbreed. Horses, Donkeys, Zebras are a good example. These animals can produce viable offspring but still have significant anatomical differences (those differences tend to define what we call species)
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Re:Animal painting found in cave is 44k years old
by ACow_Adonis on Thursday December 12, 2019 @08:26PM
(#21778327)
Yes, but they are notable because of their exceptional nature, and where many of them do interbreed, the understanding is they often/ predominantly produce sterile offspring, and thus do not/ have not spread in any meaningful way through the resulting population.
If 'Neanderthal DNA' is found in a huge percentage of 'modern humans', on the face of if, it seems to me the notion that Neanderthals should be considered a separate species is the preposition that seems somewhat/increasingly spurious...
Re:Animal painting found in cave is 44k years old
by danieltillett on Friday December 13, 2019 @12:39AM
(#21779370)
Could you explain why you think the number of hybrid offspring of Neanderthals currently living prevents Neanderthals being a different species? This is like saying that if there are a large number of mules alive that donkey’s can’t be considered a different species to horses.
There is evidence that the offspring of the Neanderthal hybrids follow Haldane's Rule [1].