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In Praise of Subspecies
To lump or to split? Deciding whether an animal is a species or subspecies profoundly influences our conservation priorities
If Noah had accessed a modern taxonomic catalogue, he might have found himself with a cargo of up to 30,000 varieties of mammal, bird and reptile; if he had factored in the insects and arachnids, his Ark would soon have been foundering under the weight of about 1.1 million different species. The trinomial – the subspecies, described by a Latin name that adds a third classifying component, as in, say, Passer domesticus biblicus, the Palestine house sparrow – further inflates Noah’s hypothetical menagerie. Birds, in particular, are increasingly seen through the trinomial lens, largely because so many people enjoy (and are good at) picking out the tiny distinctions that separate populations – which is not the case with, say, slime moulds or seaweed flies.
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