If animals with the same genus but but different species breed produce infertile offsprings, how come modern humans have traces of Homo Neanderthal DNA

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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.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

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.

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