Friday, October 22, 2010

New species evolution in progress

One criticism of evolutionary theory is that we don't see species appearing. Well, not really so. We can trace recent explosions of diversity, like Africa's cichlid fishes, even if no one person could see it happen. Some experts think orcas of the Pacific Northwest are incipient species; that is, we have three populations of killer whales that are getting more and more different. Very surprisingly, the same species in the Antarctic may be doing the same thing. Now we have two species evolving so quickly humans are catching it in the act. Unfortunately, they are malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

No comments: