Slashdot Mirror
Successful Merger of Butterfly Species
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) have recreated a real butterfly in the lab by crossing two other species of butterflies. This phenomenon, which is quite rare, is known as hybrid speciation. What is more surprising is that the hybrid butterfly has been created in just three generations of lab crosses. And BBC News tells us that the new butterfly species is a viable one, with its specific wing patterns which "make them undesirable as mates for members of their parent species." In fact, this hybridization, which occurred without any changes to the chromosome number, could mean that it is an important factor in the origin of new animal species. Read more for many additional references and a comparison of wing patterns between hybrids and wild butterflies."
I once read an article about the possibilities of engineering butterfly wing patterns to produce, lets say, a well known brand logo. So you could have swarms of live "nike", "samsung" banners fluttering all over your garden.
Guess this means we are one step closer to such reality. this is so Dystopian.
Cane Toads?
How viable are they as a species if they are unable to find partners for mating?
They mean 'viable' in the sense that they can breed and are not sterile, like many hybrid animals (think donkeys) are. The wing patterns are probably mentioned because presumably these butterflies will breed with their own in the wild, building up a population of the species without merging with the parent species by interbreeding back with them until they are indistinguishable.
because we can now call it a "super-butterfly". It has all of the traits of the other butterflies, including super-strength, "butterfly-sense", and agility. Eventually
Think of the poor bastard superhero who is created by getting bit by this "super-butterfly" and has to live out his days with the secret identity of BUTTERFLY-MAN!!!
The problem is that species is really only a very vaguely useful term. The line between "will not/cannot" breed with each other (and usually "in the wild" is added to this) is very very fuzzy, and there are many stages of compatibility in between, from sterile offspring, to rarely viable offspring, to rarely fertile offspring, and so on. Often species that will not breed in the wild under normal conditions will if conditions (or light levels, for instance) change.
"The butterflies COULD breed with each other, the scientists just don't think they will try."
As i noted, not reproducing without human intervention IS a barrier for defining speciation. That's why spinner dolphins and false killer whales are considered different species, even though wolphins exist in captivity. Chiclids, for instance, will only mate with certain colored fellow chiclids, but if you alter the light conditions so that they cannot make out the distinctions, then they will mate.
And so on.
One thing that I often find strange is that given the wide wide range of diversity amongst animals that are all of the same species (say, domestic dogs), people find it so hard to believe that speciation can happen, especially given that many genetically incompatible species are far far more similar to each other than dogs are morphologically. Two populations becoming genetically incompatible is really not much different from how they become visually different: it's just that the genetic changes in question happen to be working on more core reproductive elements rather than outward looks.
one common mistake is that people use darwins[sic] theories to say evolution is correct, but all his theories say is that if you survive better then something else, then you become dominant.
Have you read Darwin's work? He postulates a number of things. One is that animals that survive better breed more. One is that hereditary traits make an animal more or less likely to survive. He postulates specifically that species subjected to a specific stress will adapt based upon these two mechanisms. He calls this, "evolution."
darwins[sic] theories were not tested with wide mutated genetic variables, all of his theories were done with regular genetic variation.
Darwin did not do any real testing, only observation and hypothesis. Others tested his theories via a wide range of mechanisms, from predictions about the fossil record to direct induction of large amounts of mutagens and specific stresses. I''m not sure what you mean by "regular genetic variation" as applied to this particular subject. What Darwin did not theorize about (in his popular written works), but which is often erroneously attributed to him is a theory of the origin of life. Maybe you're thinking of Lavorkian, who proposed evolution based not upon heredity, but upon changes in a creature within its lifespan?
Sadly, there have been a number of cases. None of whom could fully integrated into society. Children raised by wolves, dogs, monkeys, and recently in the news... chickens (no really!).
See Feral Children for more information.
Not only a gray area, there is no real definition of species. The consensus seems to be something along the lines of "distinct population groups that generally don't interbreed". Not that they can't, not that they don't, just that they usually don't.
For example, I seem to recall that all (or maybe just most) of the members of the Canidae family (That's dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals etc.) can interbreed. I don't remember exactly though... it could have just been the Canis genus (dogs, wolves, jackals), or maybe I'm just mistaken. Anyone else know?