I grew up hearing that the main indicator of a species was that they only reproduced with one another. But Neanderthals and Humans cross bred. And they’re separate species. And in captivity Lions and Tigers can breed, but they’re obviously different species. Like I guess I’m just confused where the line gets drawn when deciding what is and isn’t a different species.
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The reality of it is that ‘species’ is a human-made concept that attempts to categorize/bin points that are continuous. It is easier to think about categories than complex continuous processes. The concept of a species is just something that makes it easier and more convenient to communicate groups of organisms.
With this in mind, there has been quite a lot of debate as to what defines a species, and with every definition, there is usually an example of a species that breaks the rules of that definition.
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