If the definition of species is that individuals of the same species are capable of producing fertile offspring why were humans and Neanderthals able to reproduce? Are we the same species?
In: Biology
The problem is that when we were evolving, nature didn’t really care about the distinctions that we would eventually make. Species in particular is a super nebulous term. Does it mean that all sexually mature members of one species must be able to make fertile offspring with all other ones of the opposite sex? What if there’s two groups where males of species A can viably mate with females of species B, but not the other way around. Are they the same species?
Questions like that make defining “species” to be arduous at best, and sisyphusian at worst
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