When a Parent Becomes a Daughter

[Stanley Friesen]

At 12:56 AM 1/23/00 -0500, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
>>rao.3 at osu.edu writes:

><< Wouldn't the rise of new species be a better parallel to the rise of new
>>languages? Ancestral species can exist at the same time as a species
>>that has split off.

>-- not generally.

Actually, yes, quite generally.

>  Eg., we and the chimps (and gorillas and bonobos) are
>descended from a common ancestor, and chimps are much more _like_ that common
>ancestor, but we can't be said to be descended from chimps.

Not a good example, we diverged over 5 million years ago, and there have
been several species in each lineage in between then and now (humans are at
least five speciation steps removed from the common ancestor, and probably
more).  You need to look at more recent speciation events to see
co-occurrence of parent and daughter species. Better examples might be
found in Hawaiian fruit flies, or Sonoran butterflies, or African chiclid fish.

In fact the analogy is an excellent one, since exactly the same issue of
"transitive" identity makes the exact moment of speciation impossible to
identify, except in special cases.  With few exceptions, parental
generations are always able to interbreed with their offspring.  This is
exactly analogous to the parent-child similarity in speech that has come up
here before.

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com