eli5: why do we use a specific epithet in species names? shouldnt the genus be enough?
In: Biology
A species is any group of organisms that can successfully produce fertile offspring with one another. A genus is not descriptive enough, because while many organisms within the same genus may behave or look similar, they cannot reproduce fertile offspring together and thus should not be classified as being the same.
One example is the panthera genus. Panthers, lions, tigers, jaguars, oh my. They may look similar and all be big cats, but there are obviously significant differences between them that make it so just referring to one of them as a “panthera” doesn’t give enough information.
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