Xref: utzoo talk.bizarre:12459 misc.legal:4784 talk.politics.misc:9887 talk.origins:1635 sci.bio:1172 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ucsd!brain!akkana From: akkana@brain.ucsd.edu (Akkana) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,talk.origins,sci.bio Subject: Re: Are Animals Patentable? Keywords: speciation Message-ID: <819@ucsd.EDU> Date: 12 May 88 01:42:01 GMT References: <97500013@prism> <4872@xanth.cs.odu.edu> <9915@tekecs.TEK.COM> <3447@gryphon.CTS.COM> <2924@saturn.ucsc.edu> <564@pedsga.UUCP> Sender: nobody@ucsd.EDU Reply-To: akkana@brain.UCSD.EDU (Akkana) Distribution: na Organization: LOBDTM, U.C. San Diego Lines: 27 In article <564@pedsga.UUCP> lae@pedsga.UUCP (Leslie Ann Ellis) writes: >I seem to recall from my Physical Anthropology course that speciation >is defined as occuring when the parts of a population that become >physically isolated from each other either: >1) Can no longer breed successfully, >or >2) Produce sterile offspring. I've heard that, but it doesn't seem consistent with current taxonomy. What about dogs (Canis familiaris) and wolves (C. lupus) and coyotes (C. latrans or something like that)? Dogs interbreed with both wolves and coyotes, and I've met several canines whose owners claimed them to be 3/4 wolf, or 3/8 wolf, or whatever, which suggests that the offspring of a dog/wolf cross is fertile. Are dogs and wolves now considered to be the same species? (I was thinking that there were several other examples of this, but I can't seem to think of any. And I've never heard of a wolf-coyote cross, though that may also happen. Maybe C. familiaris is just a special case?) .. ...Akkana LaboratoryForBiologicalDynamicsAndTheoreticalMedicine, UCSD akkana%brain@ucsd.edu sun!brain.ucsd.edu!akkana "I think I'll take a walk. Hmm, wonder where this wire goes?"