if we differentiate between species by not being able to provide fertile descendents. Why do we say neanderthals were a different species from us but also say we got some of their genes via cross reproduction?
In: Biology
1. Neanderthals were homo-sapian, same species, but different sub-species, like grey wolf vs Weiner dog (we’re the Weiner dog). They were homo-sapiens neanderthalis, we’re homo-sapien sapiens (the species so nice we named ourselves twice).
2. The species line is where they *start* to have trouble breeding. Genus (the “homo” in “homo-sapien”) is where remaining ability to breed ends.
3. Taxonomy (putting creatures into categories like kingdom, family, genus, species, etc.) is technically ‘non-scientific’. It’s not a system that always makes sense nor has perfect rules, and there’s a lot of winging-it. For example, thanks to viral horizontal gene transfer (that’s when viruses inject DNA into you and it becomes permanently part of you along with any kids you have later), any species can technically end up sharing genes with another. The only reason we keep taxonomy around is it’s because it’s “good enough” and easier to use than the actually scientific way: genetic distance (which instead compares creatures by how different their DNA is… the downside? No convenient categories, so they still borrow from taxonomy to talk about it, just willing to admit where it gets fuzzy.
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