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[–] 2 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

Are there not worthwhile distinctions between sepcies that can interbreed? I remember learning from an anthro professor there are horses for examples that literally have different amounts of chromosomes that can interbreed fine. I still don't see how ability to have viable offspring isn't also just an arbitrary distinction I guess, especially when there's whole classifications of life that break that rule into pieces.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    While a little arbitrary, we use "ability to produce viable offspring" as a metric of speciation. Two animals can bone and create an offspring, but that offspring has to have live gametes (egg/sperm) for the parents to be considered the same species.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago

    While a little arbitrary

    it's not that arbitrary as you might think. genetics is literally all about mutating, mixing and recombining genes, and producing viable offspring together is a huge part of that. that is why the concept of species is so important.

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