Part of attempts to ban all research that involves human fetal tissue, because the superstitious feelings of anti-choice fanatics over useless, garbage corpse flesh is apparently more important than any number of entire human lives.
Not to draw away from the impact on HIV research at all, but in fact to add to the depth of this issue: acquiring fetal tissue affects many more forms of medical research as well. Vaccines, degenerative disease research, and other immunology related conditions rely on this technology. While advances in pluripotent stem cell research to replace it as a medium is well underway, we just aren’t there yet. This halt on funding will ripple through our community.
Referred Species: A. valisineria (Canvasback, Extant), A. ferina (Common Pochard, Extant), A. americana (Redhead, Extant), A. collaris (Ring-Necked Ducks, Extant), A. australis (Hardhead, Extant), A. baeri (Baer’s Pochard, Extant), A. nyroca (Ferruginous Duck, Extant), A. innotata (Madagascar Pochard, Extant), A. novaeseelandiae (New Zealand Scaup, Extant), A. fuligula (Tufted Duck, Extant), A. marila (Greater Scaup, Extant), A. affinis (Lesser Scaup, Extant), A. shihuibas (Extinct), A. denesi (Extinct)
Ferruginous Duck by Francis C. Franklin, CC BY-SA 3.0
Aythya is a large genus of diving ducks from all over the world, including many different species including Scaups and Pochard. While most species in this genus are not threatened with extinction, a few of them are critically endangered, especially those in insular environments. The oldest occurrence of this genus is from the late Miocene, and as such it appears to be about 12 million years old, from the Tortonian age of the Miocene of the Neogene, until today. Almost all of these ducks are associated with marine environments, given their diving ecology.
A. shihuibas is one of two known extinct species in this genus, from the Late Miocene of China. A. denesi is another species, hailing from the late Miocene of Hungary, specifically the Polgárdi 4 formation in Feér County. There is also an Early Pleistocene member of this genus from Turkey that remains undescribed. These extinct members of the genus are, in general, known from fairly limited material. A. denesi is known from fairly limited material of the humerus, showing it was very similar to living members of this genus of diving ducks, showing advanced structures typical of this genus, but still retaining some of the more plesiomorphic (re: ancestral) features of ducks in general, including some fairly “primitive” characteristics. This shows that these diving ducks were still transitional in their evolution in the late Miocene, and it was only recently that modern forms for this genus were really starting to appear.
Canvasback by Dick Daniels, CC BY-SA 3.0
The Canvasback, A. valisineria, is an unthreatened species of this genus primarily from North America. It breeds in Canada and the Western United States, and spends the winters in most of the rest of the United States and Mexico. The largest species of this genus, it is about the size of a mallard, weighing up to 1.6 kilograms, though it is more compact than the mallard. The males have ruddy brown heads with black necks and white bodies, while the females are more brown all over. They nest primarily on water near prairie marshes, though some breed in subarctic river deltas. They lay about 5 to 11 eggs at a time. They feed primarily on seeds, buds, leaves, tubers, roots, snails, and insects, mainly by diving but also by dabbling, given their wide variety of habitats – they are highly migratory ducks!
Common Pochard by Tony Hisgett, CC BY 2.0
The Common Pochard, A. ferina, is a species vulnerable to extinction from Europe and Asia. They are migratory birds as well, spending winter in Southwestern Europe, and are commonly found breeding in the northern British Isles. The males have distinctive red heads, black necks, and white bodies, while the females are primarily brown and actually make growling sounds. They form very large flocks, often mixed ones, and feed by both diving and dabbling on aquatic plants, molluscs, insects, and even fish. They usually feed during the night. Due to urbanization and overhunting, their populations are currently on decline.
Redhead Duck by Kevin Bercaw, CC BY 3.0
The Redhead Duck, A. americana, is a nonthreatened species from North America, with males once again very distinct due to the bright red heads and greyish-black bodies. They spend the winter in Southern North America, and then breed in the Western United States and Canada, migrating between these two locations. They are very well adapted for underwater foraging, with legs far back on their bodies to aid in diving, but making land walking extremely difficult. They feed primarily on gastropods, molluscs, and insects, and will eat plants during the winter as well. They prefer living in wetland environments, especially ones with deep enough water for vegetation for their breeding habitat. They do flock together on lakes and migrate in pairs, with elaborate courtship rituals involving the males kinking their necks and stretching them for display, making calls until the female shows reciprocation. They build nests in thick plant material, and actually breed in very social environments, laying eggs of up to 7 young.
Ring-Necked Duck by Dan Pancamo, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Ring-Necked Duck, A. collaris, is another diving duck of least concern from North America, breeding in Canada and then migrating down to the Southwestern United States and Mexico for the winter season. Dark in color, the males have noticeable white beaks and bright white wings, with red rings around their necks, while the females are more dark in color all around (as shown above). They breed in wooded lakes and ponds, mainly in boreal regions, and then migrate to lakes, ponds, rivers, and bays in warmer climates. Though they form pairs for breeding, they usually separate after reproduction. About 10 eggs are laid per clutch, which are guarded by the mothers until the young can fly. They are omnivores, feeding on animals and plants throughout the year, though they prefer plants to animals as adults.
Hardhead, by Fir0002, GFDL 1.2
The Hardhead, A. australis, is the only diving duck known from Australia, not considered threatened with extinction due to its widespread presence in its range. They are common in the south-eastern portion of Australia, but also is found frequently near coasts. They are fairly nomadic ducks, except during drought years, when they disperse in search of water. They dive deeply for food, and are often found submerged fro even a minute at a time, eating a lot of small water animals. They enjoy living in lakes, swamps, and rivers, but are usually avoiding the coast, and are rarely found on land. They are actually fairly small ducks, and both males and females are brown, though the males have darker brown heads.
Baer’s Pochard by Dick Daniels, CC BY-SA 3.0
Baer’s Pochard, A. baeri, is a critically endangered diving duck from eastern Asia, breeding in Russia and China and migrating to Vietnam, Japan, and India for the winter months. It is a fairly small duck with long, distinctive beaks, and dark heads with brown bodies in the males. They are fairly similar in general to other members of this genus, breeding around lakes with rich vegetation and nesting in dense grass, typically favoring coastal wetlands and ponds. Unfortunately, its numbers are decreasing very rapidly, primarily due to wetland destruction and hunting, with up to 3,000 individuals killed every year.
Ferruginous Ducks by Erbanor, in the Public Domain
The Ferruginous Duck, A. nyroca, is a near-threatened species from Eurasia, with males and females being a chestnut brown, though the females slightly darker and duller than the males. They live in shallow bodies of fresh water, sometimes slightly salty ones. They breed from the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb south to Arabia, and then winters in the Mediterranean Basin and Black Sea. They are fairly social, and lay eggs in sites next to water. They both dive and dabble for food, feeding primarily on aquatic plants and insects. They are threatened due to habitat degradation by humans, mainly due to impoundment, drainage, and pollution. Non-native species also cause invasive competition for these birds.
Madagascan Pochard by Frank Vassen, CC BY 2.0
The Madagascan Pochard, A. innotata, is a very critically endangered and rare species of diving duck, primarily known from Lake Matsaborimena in Madagascar. The population today is only around 80 individuals. They probably started an extreme decline in the mid-1900s, due to introduction of fish species that would kill pochard chicks. Rice cultivation has also lead to sharp population declines. The last sighting prior to recent times was a small flock in 1960; after that point, only a few more have been seen, though rescue plans are ongoing and captive breeding is working, with reintroduction on Lake Sofia planned for the near future.
New Zealand Scaup by Tony Wills, CC BY-SA 3.0
The New Zealand Scaup, A. novaeseelandiae, is a nonthreatened species found throughout New Zealand and no one else. It is commonly called the Papango by the Māori. The Papango is a diving duck that can submerge for up to half a minute, looking for aquatic plants and small animals. They are found in deep freshwater lakes and ponds, and it doesn’t migrate. They lay eggs from October to March, up to eight in a clutch, which are incubated by the females and brought to suitable diving locations soon after hatching. Males have striking yellow eyes and greenish heads, while the females have a white patch on their faces and non-yellow eyes.
Tufted Duck by Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 2.5
The Tufted Duck, A. fuligula, is a small, nonthreatened diving duck, with up to one million birds out in the wild. It is found across all of the Northern Hemisphere, found as a winter visitor in the United States and Canada, though primarily known from Europe and certain localities in Asia such as the Indian subcontinent and Japan. They breed close to marshes and lakes with vegetation to conceal their nests, and they are also often found on coastal lagoons and ponds. They dive for food, feeding primarily on molluscs and insects. The males are all black except for white sides of their bodies, with clear little crests coming off of their heads; while the females are more brownish.
Greater Scaup by Calibas, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Greater Scaup, A. marila, is a commonly known diving duck from the Northern Hemisphere. This duck is so commonly known that decoys for hunting are often designed off of it, and their distinctive patterns are see frequently in duck-related things (my mom had bookends that looked like Greater Scaups). The males have dark green and black heads and striped backs, with distinct white and black patterns on their bodies. The females are mostly brown, but also have white patches on their sides. These ducks live in both North America and Eurasia, typically near coastal areas and around lakes. They eat aquatic molluscs, plants, and insects, which they get through diving. They weigh up to 1.4 kilograms, and are primarily associated with polar regions as well. They breed in the tundra and boreal forests, nesting on islands in northern lakes. The males make quick soft whistles to attract the females, which make raspy vocalizations in response. They form monogamous pairs, which nest close together, and after the eggs are laid the males leave the females. The females lay up to nine eggs, and the chicks are able to walk nearly immediately, though the female guards them until they’re able to fend for themselves. They are threatened by a variety of predators, including humans; they are also threatened by pollution; but there are conservation efforts ongoing, including banding programs.
Lesser Scaup by Connor Mah, CC BY-SA 3.0
And finally, the Lesser Scaup, A. affinis, is a smaller American species that is also not threatened with extinction. It breeds primarily in Canada, migrates across the Northern United States, and winters in the Southern United States, Mexico, and Central America. These ducks weigh up to 1 kilogram, and the males have black heads and striped bodies, while the females are primarily brown. Quieter ducks, they are frequently hard to distinguish from the Greater Scaup, especially since they often flock together. However, Lesser Scaups have darker irises than Greater Scaups. These ducks breed primarily in inland lakes and marsh ponds, and then migrate south. They forage through mud at the bottom of these waterways, and even will dabble rather than dive, though they primarily dive for molluscs and some aquatic plants. They nest in sheltered locations near the water, in shallow depressions lined with plants and down feathers, and lay up to 11 eggs in a nest, which are watched primarily by the mothers. Though not threatened yet, they are experiencing sharp declines in population, primarily due to decreasing breeding success, pollution, and habitat destruction, as well as climate change.
Fun fact: Gender and Sex are both human made constructs designed to describe natural phenomenon but are not actually based in any biological reality. Much like the concept of “species”, it’s a model, and no model is an actuality – then it would not be a model, it would be a fact.
In truth sexual characteristics are diverse and varied and do not always match up with sex chromosomes; also, a sexual “binary” of sorts is not constant amongst all living things, and most organisms have other systems of reproduction.
Furthermore, gender is the suite of societally-defined social roles and behavioral characteristics that is typically assigned based on the externally perceived sex of a child; and does not actually have anything to do with biology – even less so than sex. Even though it is assigned based on this externally perceived sex, a person’s gender does not have to remain with the one assigned; much as we don’t determine people’s careers based on who their parents were anymore, your birth has no limitation on who you are and what gender identity you construct for yourself. Since it is a societally defined construct, people can and do construct more than the two traditional ones, and all are valid.
Just because you cannot handle your societally constructed worldview surrounding sex, gender, and genetics being dismantled by sociology & biology itself doesn’t mean, additionally, that you have the right to make other people feel unsafe and uncomfortable – in short, that you have the right to remove people from moral consideration – simply because you don’t like having your world view being dismantled. Believe it or not, the complexities of human behavior & the diversity of sex and reproduction in life cannot all be covered in a simple high school biology class.
So next time you want to say “didn’t you pass biology” remember: a biology PhD student, who graduated from the University of Notre Dame with an actual degree in Biological Sciences, has reminded you that you’re wrong.
There are more than two genders.
The end.
Sex is biological tough… It’s not a social construct… It’s not time, racism etc. It’s a physics attribute.
Why are you trying to argue with someone who said species is a constructed model and not a fact? You’re not going to change someone’s mind when they’re that far down the rabbit hole
Me: Spends 6 years intensely studying biological science and evolution at two major universities with widespread academic acclaim, earning honors and high GPAs and am currently working on a PhD in the subject of biodiversity and evolution
You: Somehow thinks they know more because you took a couple of classes
Lol
…Buddy. Buddy. Dude. I really don’t think you want to open this can of worms.
I mean, I know that in school they teach you a very clean, concise, definitive way of doing things and you’ve probably learnt something like the definition of a species is a population of organisms that are able to reproduce and produce viable offspring, or something. But I mean literally anyone who has done even undergrad biology can tell you that that statement is incredibly reductive and incredibly controversial in the scientific community [1][2]. In fact, you probably don’t even need a background in biology to spot the obvious flaw in the logic there, which is the fact that organisms classified as different species do reproduce and produce viable offspring. Quite a lot, actually. Lions and tigers (Panthera leo and P. tigris), coyotes and grey wolves (Canis latrans and C. lupus)… In fact, there’s even a word for new species arising through hybridisation between existing species – hybrid speciation [3]. The great skua (Stercorarius skua) is believed to be an example of this in animals [4], and another interesting one that may be pretty much hybrid speciation in action (though not nearly anything that can be called a new distinct species yet) is the so-called “Eastern coyote”, a population of wild coyotes in the eastern US that are mixed with grey wolf and domestic dog, and can contain as much as 40% non-coyote DNA [5].
And, in fact, the ability of two organisms to reproduce and produce viable offspring actually has very little with how we choose to classify them, because evolutionary and genetic relationships are rarely that simple. For example, some species that are the same genus – e.g. horses (Equus ferus) and donkeys (Equus africanus) can interbreed, but their offspring are usually sterile [6], while other species that are different genera to each other can interbreed to produce intergeneric hybrids, some of which are even fertile (for example crosses between false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) [7], or between king snakes (genus Lampropeltis) and corn snakes (genus Pantherophis) [8]). Most “exotic” domestic cat breeds (e.g. Bengals and Savannahs) also fall into this category – for some reason felids are genetically Weird in that a wide variety of species in the family Felidae seem able to interbreed with each other, no matter how different or distantly related they are. I mean…
Look at this shit. Now bear in mind that the domestic cat (Felis catus) is known to be able to interbreed with species in the caracal, ocelot, lynx and leopard cat lineages in addition to those in its own lineage, and if that wasn’t bad enough puma/leopard hybrids are a thing that exist. Those species aren’t even in the same subfamily, let alone genus or genetic lineage – the leopard is classed as subfamily Pantherinae, genus Panthera (P. pardus) while the puma is classed as subfamily Felinae, genus Puma (P. concolor).
Although these aren’t even the most distantly related species that are able to interbreed – domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are known to hybridise with guineafowl [10], and the offspring of these crosses are interfamilial hybrids since chickens and guineafowl are classified in different families (chickens belong to family Phasianidae, guineafowl to family Numididae).
And of course another place where the “able to interbreed and produce viable offspring” definition falls apart is with organisms that reproduce asexually or without the need for a sexual partner, which is even more complicated when you consider that some species (for example, some species in the paraphyletic whiptail lizard genus Cnemidophorus) aredioecious, meaning they have separate sexes, and reproduce by producing gametes via meiosis, but have actually lost the ability to reproduce sexually somewhere along the evolutionary line – these species reproduce predominantly or entirely by parthenogenesis (essentially a form of self-cloning) and the Y chromosome has been entirely lost in the population. This also ties into hybrid speciation because it is believed that these parthenogenic species arose from hybridisation between two or three sexual species [11][12], leading to polyploid individuals (i.e. those with ‘extra’ sets of chromosomes) – for example, the all-female parthenogenic species Cnemidophorus neomexicanus is actually a hybrid of two sexual species, Cnemidophorus inornatus and C. marmoratus (or C. tigris, according to Wikipedia), and thus new individuals of this species can be formed either by parthenogenesis in a single C. neomexicanus parent, or sexual reproduction between a male and female C. inornatus and C. marmoratus/C. tigris [13]. Some female parthenogenic species are also able to interbreed sexually with males from sexual species, resulting in hybrids which may or may not also be parthenogenic [14].
So you can ask, well what the fuck is a genus, or a species for that matter, if it doesn’t necessarily indicate whether two animals are genetically similar enough to interbreed or not? And, more to the point, is there a strict set of quantitative criteria that defines whether two populations of organisms are classified as the same or different species? And I mentioned speciation, which brings up the question, when exactly in the process of evolution does one species actually become another?
The thing is, there aren’t actually definitive answers to these questions – if you ask a bunch of biologists what a species is, it’s likely you’ll get different answers. “Species” also has a number of definitions [15][16], mainly depending on the type of organism being studied and the angle it is being studied from. For bacteria, for instance – where “similar enough to reproduce” really isn’t applicable – I think the general consensus is that individuals are grouped together if their genetic similarity to one another is 97-98% or higher, while a similar definition of “organisms that are highly genetically similar to one another” tends to be used for asexually reproducing organisms such as some plants, and parthenogenic animals like whiptail lizards or Bdelloid rotifers (which does of course raise the question of what exactly “highly similar” means – any decided-upon cutoff point will necessarily be somewhat arbitrary). Such groupings of organisms may be referred to as phylotypes to distinguish them from the reproductive definition of a “species” [17]. Likewise, a lot of ecological writing will define species and speciation according to reproductive isolation, which isn’t necessarily synonymous with reproductive compatibility – reproductively isolated populations may be genetically able to reproduce, but be prevented from doing so or unlikely to do naturally so due to differences in geographical location, habitat or behaviour (think lions and tigers). These are some of the many different “types” of species, with either competing or overlapping definitions of what exactly constitutes a species in each case:
Morphological or typological species (morphospecies)
Phylogenetic species
Evolutionary species
Genetic species
Genalogical concordance species
Reproductive species
Autapomorphic species
Ecological species
Recognition species
Phenetic species
Isolation species
Cohesion species
…You get the idea.
For vertebrates, I think generally the two most used definitions are the biological species concept (BSC) and phylogenetic or cladistic species concept (PSC), which differ in their criteria for what they consider a species [18][19]. PSC, for example, doesn’t include a subspecies category while BSC does – and thus, some organisms that are classified as subspecies of the same species under BSC are either classified as different species or are lumped together as the same species under PSC. For example, grey wolves and domestic dogs. The domestic dog is/was often considered a separate species to the grey wolf, for obvious (morphological/behavioural) reasons – the wolf was Canis lupus, the dog C. familiaris – but since dogs are descended from wolves (a now-extinct lineage of wolves, not modern grey wolves [20], but Canis lupus nonetheless) they are more properly classified as a subspecies, C. l. familiaris. Likewise, having also ultimately descended from wolves, the dingo is officially classified as C. l. dingo, although there is some debate about that – at one stage I remember it being classified as a “subspecies” of domestic dog, Canis lupus familiaris dingo (and it’s still, to my knowledge, widely considered to be descended from domestic dogs [21][22], in which case the second name would be more correct), while still other people classify it as a completely separate species, Canis dingo [23]. You can see why species boundaries and definitions can get murky, especially when the exact evolutionary origins of a particular animal are unknown or hotly contested.
In fact, canids as a whole are kind of a mess when it comes to phylogeny. How many species of wolf there are really depends on who you ask – some populations traditionally classified as subspecies of the grey wolf, for example the Indian wolf (traditionally C. l. pallipes), the Himalayan or Tibetan wolf (traditionally C. l. chanco) and the Eastern wolf (traditionally C. l. lycaon) have been suggested instead to be classified as separate species – Canis indica, Canis himalayensis and Canis lycaon, respectively [24][25]. Likewise, just last year it was discovered that what was thought to be an African subspecies of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) had in fact been misidentified and was instead an undiscovered species of wolf, now the African golden wolf (Canis anthus) [26]. And then there’s also the fact that, despite being called “jackals”, the black-backed and side-striped jackals actually aren’t very closely related to the golden jackal, or indeed to any of the rest of the genus Canis [27]. In fact, going by the cladogram below, you can see that the African wild dog and dhole – both of which are classed in their own, unique genera (Lycaon and Cuon, respectively) – are actually placed closer to wolves, golden jackals and coyotes than black-backed and side-striped jackals are, even though both of the latter species are considered part of genus Canis (the black-backed jackal is C. mesomelas and the side-striped is C. adustus). Many sources also say that these two species differ from the rest of the group in that they have only 74 chromosomes, while wolves, coyotes, golden jackals, African wild dogs and dholes all have 78. This makes the moniker of genus Canis somewhat useless when trying to determine exactly how genetically similar these animals actually are to one another.
And this isn’t even touching the issue of the “red wolf” (Canis rufus), a critically endangered so-called “species” of wolf closely related to the grey wolf, eastern wolf and coyote, which more recent molecular and genetic analysis has revealed may simply be a wolf/coyote hybrid [29]. Of course these classifications aren’t set in stone, either – new studies and discoveries are constantly uprooting and rewriting our knowledge of phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships among species. Sometimes it’s also pretty much impossible to accurately represent the relationships between similar-but-distinct populations using only the terms “genus” and “species”, which is where alternate concepts like species complex, subgenus and superspecies come in.
Another feature of evolution and speciation that makes classification difficult is what are known as ring species, in which a series of neighbouring populations of organisms may evolve divergently (i.e. undergo allopatric speciation) in such a way that each geographically adjacent or overlapping population can interbreed with the next, but the last population in the “ring” has diverged to the point that it can no longer interbreed with the first (basically, population A can interbreed with population B, B with C and C with D, but D can no longer interbreed with A).
When does the actual split occur, and at what point in the ring can we consider the populations to be different species? We just don’t know. (And in some cases this is considerably more messy and complicated than even the ring species model makes it seem [32]). The point is, though, that there is no definitive, universally agreed-upon cutoff point at which we can say with certainty that two organisms have evolved sufficiently as to become different species, any more than you can definitively say where along a rainbow spectrum of colours red becomes orange or orange becomes yellow. The decision whether to lump or split taxa becomes even more arbitrary in paleontology than it is with extant species [33][34] – when you’re working with an incomplete fossil record and pretty much going entirely on morphological similarities since genetic or molecular analysis often isn’t possible, there isn’t really a way to conclusively determine whether that specimen you found represents a new species, a new genus, or is simply a larger/smaller/juvenile/unfortunate-looking version of an already-described animal. Many specimens now believed to be juveniles of previously-described species were originally believed to be completely new ones – for example, Nanotyrannus is now often (but not universally) agreed to be a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex [35], and Dracorex and Stygimoloch are considered immature specimens of Pachycephalosaurus [36]. And then there was the whole deal where Brontosaurus didn’t exist for a while and then it did again and it was all very confusing [37].
Obviously, at the end of the day, a zebra is materially different from a dog in the same way that, to get back to the original topic, a penis is materially different from a vagina (actually a bad analogy since homologous reproductive organs are much more similar to each other than taxa that have been separated for millions of years, but anyway). The biological differences and similarities themselves exist, but any attempt to categorise and quantify them will necessarily rely on socially constructed and frequently arbitrary models, definitions and assumptions. That’s basically what science is – a continuous (and frequently wildly inaccurate) attempt to try to make sense of reality. We often attempt to understand or make predictions about reality using mathematical or quantitative models of the situation or by sorting things into sets and categories, which is useful and necessary in many cases but is also often far too simplistic to be taken as any kind of gospel truth regarding the actual nature of reality, because simply put reality doesn’t care for or abide by human-made rules and categories. Essentially, we’re trying to find quantitative ways to represent things that are by nature qualitative, and that’s always going to be arbitrary to some extent. Obviously biological characteristics (whether genetic, sexual/reproductive, etc.) objectively exist and would continue to exist if humans and human culture were to suddenly disappear, and in that sense, things like sex, gender and taxonomic classification can be said to be basedin biological reality. But human attempts to define or categorise these characteristics – for example species concepts, the binary model of sex, etc. – are not in themselves biological realities, and are subject to change based on new information. For example, evolutionarily speaking, “reptiles” (as we traditionally understand them) don’t exist [38]. Obviously this doesn’t mean that lizards, tortoises, snakes, crocodiles, non-avian dinosaurs etc. don’t exist or never existed. It simply means that the socially constructed classification of animals into two distinct, mutually exclusive groups called “reptiles” and “birds” is completely arbitrary and not actually the result of any inherent biological reality (in fact the opposite).
I mean I know how crappy the highschool biology syllabus can be @valarie-lynn so I’ll also link you to the Wikipedia page on species and the species problem, and also to somemoreonsex and how it’s just as complicated and arbitrary as the concept of species (from Actual Biologists™) if you’re interested. I’ll also leave you with a quote from Charles Darwin:
“From these remarks it will be seen that I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the word variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, and for convenience sake
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 