Posted by:
FunkyRes
at Sat Aug 5 04:31:36 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FunkyRes ]
I think your definition of species is wrong.
Sometimes two different species can not breed at all.
Sometimes (as in Buffalo and Domestic Cattle) only one sex is usually fertile, (I believe in buffalo/cattle - bull hybrids from first gen crossing are very rarely fertile), etc.
However, two specimens being able to produce fertile offspring does not mean they are the same species.
If it did, then gopher snakes, rat snakes, kingsnakes, would all be the same species - as you can hybrid them all with each other and get fertile offspring. Clearly they are not the same species.
I don't think there is an absolute definition for species anywhere that isn't necessarily broken somewhere in nature.
Species is just used as a mechanism for us (humans) to classify what we find out there.
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3.0 WC; 0.2 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata
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