Is Homo genus the exception of this? I have pretty much zero knowledge in biology but been curious about this for a while and can’t get it out of my head.
In: 10
When a Neanderthal and human really love each other. They go into a cave together and take off their animal skins. The male puts his private parts into the female parts and moved them around until something special comes out. Repeated enough times there is a strong chance that a baby will be made. Because that happened a long time ago. Humans have some neanderthal in them. This is because they are similar enough that successful offspring was possible
Neanderthals are often classified as a subspecies of *Homo sapiens*. In this scheme they’re *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis* and we’re *Homo sapiens sapiens*. Although the truth of the matter is that ability to interbreed isn’t a clear-cut delineator of species; there are lots of exceptions to that general rule.
Things like genus and species are not naturally occurring, strictly defined, dividing lines. They are human created labels for trying to understand and categorize things. They are not perfect and they are not exact. Heck scientists don’t even agree on what the exact definition is or what belongs in each category all the time when it comes to species.
Take any two organisms, the more closely they are related the better the odds they can produce a fertile offspring together. Get far enough apart and the chances drop to zero (for a number of reasons) but it’s fuzzy up til that point.
What you are referring to is the “[biological species concept](https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_species_concept)” which is not the only way to classify species and is not perfect. For example [ring species](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species) are the classic contradiction to the biological species concept, it would classify populations as distinct species despite a flow of genes between them. It gets even more difficult with microorganisms and other definitions/considerations are used.
Defining species is very difficult and ultimately somewhat subjective.
Nature has this nasty habit of not caring about the labels we try to apply to it. Or even the system we use to generate those labels. So more often than not, we just have to change our labels.
In this case, it’s forcing us to classify neantherdals as a sister subspecies to us.
But in general, deciding where a species begins and ends is more of an art than science. The classic example is of two populations splitting around a mountain, spreading along it and being incompatible with eachother at the other side, but still compatible with their immediate neighbours to the back. Since it’s a gradual process, at which point around the mountain did the new species begin? Nevermind what line you pick, two individuals immediately before and after that line will be able to breed, making it invalid. So you are intentionally making an exception to your own rule.
Plums and apricots are different, but they can pollinate each other. Nature does what it wants.
The whole “different species” concept is more of a guideline.
Take a rainbow gradient. 🌈 you can see that there are 7 distinct colors, right?….. or can you? Yeah, you can separate the blue “species” and the red one, but what about blue and green.
Take a blue to green gradient, then zoom way in. Let’s pretend you don’t have a scroll-bar, so you cant tell when you’ve scrolled to the middle.
Can you tell me where blue ends and green begins?
That’s what a species is.
Sometimes two of them appear to both be blue in SOME aspects, but in other traits one of them appears more green (and thus can’t breed).
Sometimes one species definitely seems to be greener than another, but their sex genes are close enough to be compatible.
“Species” is an illusion.
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