Paraspecies
Encyclopedia
A paraspecies is a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

, living or fossil, that gave rise to one or more daughter species without itself becoming extinct. The concept of a paraspecies emerges naturally from the Evolutionary Species Concept . Geographically widespread species that have given rise to one or more daughter species as peripheral isolates without themselves becoming extinct (i.e. through peripatric speciation
Peripatric speciation
Peripatric and peripatry are terms from biogeography, referring to organisms whose ranges are closely adjacent but do not overlap, being separated where these organisms do not occur – for example a wide river or a mountain range. Such organisms are usually closely related Peripatric and...

) are examples of paraspecies .

Paraspecies are expected from evolutionary theory (Crisp and Chandler, 1996), and are empirical realities in many terrestrial and aquatic taxa (e.g. Patton and Smith, 1989; Bell and Foster, 1994.; Crisp and Chandler, 1996; Funk and Omland, 2003.; Albert et al., 2004; Turner et al., 2004; Hoskin, 2007; Feinstein, 2008; Lozier et al., 2008). The evolution of the polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...

 from the brown bear
Brown Bear
The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.There are several recognized...

 is a well-documented example of a living species that gave rise to another living species. Another possible example of a living paraspecies is the North Island tuatara Sphenodon punctatus, which gave rise to the Brothers Island tuatara Sphenodon guntheri.
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