Re: [tied] Re: The cat domestication happened more than 100,000 ye

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 49289
Date: 2007-07-03

alexandru_mg3 pisze:

> 1. hen : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 2. pig : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 3. goat : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 4. sheep : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 5. duck : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 6. dog : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 7. cow : Is a distinct species ? Yes
> 8. cat : Is a distinct species? Yes

Marius, this is not a forum for teaching biology, but mixing up natural
clades with arbitrarily defined Linnean "species" is an incredibly naive
approach. The 18th century is over. Cats did not become a separate
species upon domestication for the simple reason that, biologically,
they remain a subpopulation of one of the subspecies of the wildcat,
still capable of interbreeding with their wild cousins and so,
technically, conspecific with them. We can LABEL them as _Felis
domestica_ for convenience, but systematic labels don't change reality
(including feline genotypes).

Piotr