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Over 100 Frog Species Discovered in Sri Lanka
randomErr writes "An ecological treasure trove of brightly colored and diverse new frog species has been discovered on the tea-plantation-covered island of Sri Lanka. The discovery of more than a hundred new rain-forest species makes the country a new center of frog diversity and increases the urgency for protecting what little forest it retains."
black people can make babies with white people. just like different breeds of dogs can make mutts. species are 2 organisms that can't reproduce together. and that can happen because of molecular reasons, but it also happens because of other reasons (ie: they won't reproduce together because of geographic or morphological differences). that's how species are determined. you're right in thinking that dna plays a big part, but it's not the only part when it comes to speciation.
please me, have no regrets.
Hmm... Mules have been around for three thousand or so years. People were breeding jacks with mares well before the rise of the Roman Republic. The reason is that a horse will literally work itself to death if you keep encouraging it. A donkey frequently won't do any work at all if it can get away with it. A mule will work until it reaches its limits and then stops. If it will harm the mule to keep working, it typically won't go one step farther. Mules also have most of the strength of horses and much of the sure-footedness of donkeys.
The term mule is used by biologists to indicate any typically sterile cross-species offspring. This is because scientists named this sort of breeding after the classic horse / donkey pair. IIRC, donkeys or ponys can also have mule offspring with zebras.
A rare few mules were able to breed with donkeys, horses or other mules, but it is in the less than 1% category, IIRC.
If lions and tigers were discovered today, they would possibly be considered one species, as Ligers and Tigons are fully interbreedable with either parent species.
For another animal "species" people seem vaguely aware of, oxen are castrated bulls. The difference is that an ox is castrated at a certain point in cattle puberty that casuses it to become immensely muscular due to an excess of testosterone and similar hormones.
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
the real story:
Evaluating Sri Lanka's amphibian diversity
The national geographic article is fluffy trash drawing conclusions that the scientist involved did not come to.
"We are destroying enviroment before we even know what we are destroying so give us money so we can save the enviroment."
Pethiyagoda hypothosizes the exact opposite. That the destruction of corridors of rainforest created islands of rainforest where the frogs species differentiated. The dry land acted like a natural barrier would.
So, destroy the rainforest but do it in strips so we can artificially create new species to replace the ones we loose in the destruction of the rainforest.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Nit to pick: Ligers/Tigons can breed with each other or with either parent species, but the result in any case (barring freaks like the equivalent to the very rare fertile mule) is sterile. Personally I love this little fact as it helps to illustrate that biology's got exceptions to lots of little artificial rules and helps to muddy the definition of species a tad. Drives the (unmentionable combiners/perverters of science and religion) nuts.
It's also a beautiful country in general, besides being war ravaged for the past few decades, it's nice to see the country move on and to have people take interest in it once again.