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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thistles" data-source="post: 129038" data-attributes="member: 3949">Not that sharp, judging by the grade I just got on my organic chemistry exam <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown    :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /> or maybe that's just laziness...I guess I need to clarify some. Yeah, speciation is not the same as hybridization. Speciation is just when a new species is formed (and as was alluded to earlier, that can be muddy; different people have different definitions of "species) regardless of how, and hybridization is the crossing of species. "Hobby form" can be from either hybridizing or isolation. Both can result in the change of the allele makeup in the population.Here's the big difference: hybridization almost never increases variety. As I said in an earlier post, it usually makes 2 into 1, not 3. Baumgarteni is an unusual case. Look at an example without human interference and T-keeper emotions, like dolphins. There's a new species of dolphin called a clymene dolphin, which started as a hybrid between spinner and striped dolphins. This is very unusual, especially since most mammal hybrids are infertile (not the case for many other taxa, btw, which is why ability to breed is a crappy way of defining species), and it's not clear yet what the impact on the two parent species will be. The more common case is that of the spotted dolphin. They've been breeding with bottlenose dolphins (I think usually male bottlenoses rape female spotteds), and the offspring are infertile. This is causing the spotted population to drop. It takes a huge investment from a mother spotted to raise a calf, and if her calf is infertile she's just wasted a ton of energy NOT propagating her species. The result over time will be not two species becoming three, but the extinction of the spotted and all the hybrids, leaving only the bottlenose. This is more typical. (*I am not a dolphin expert. I hate the damned things. I may be wrong about this stuff, but I don't think I am.*)Sooo a big difference is compatibility. The species that overlap and are still separate species aren't typically compatible. The offspring are infertile, or, in the case of your local Aphonopelma, their genitalia/emboli aren't compatible. That's a big way to ID different T species, btw. Look at their reproductive organs. No, your local Aphonopelma don't mix, because they can't. Species that are recently differentiated, like cam and irminia, are still compatible but have speciated due to isolation. If the populations were brought together again, the two separate species would cease to exist and you'd end up with one.Just to reiterate, hybridization ALMOST NEVER is responsible for the creation of new species. It does the opposite and REDUCES the diversity. Separation is what drives speciation. Population A is split into 2, one group has a mutation that the other doesn't, and differences develop from there. Does that make more sense?Edit: the word twisting was the word "natural." You're definitely equivocating there.</blockquote>

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