To prepare for a hiking trip in the Appalachian mountains you buy several field guides for the region from a used bookstore. You notice that the older guides list a single species of tiger swallowtail butterfly Papilio glaucus and an Appalachian morph of this species. However the newest guide list two separate species P. glaucus and P. appalachiensis. The authors of this guide state that the biological species concept was used in determining their classifications. What do you think led them to list two separate species of tiger swallowtail?

Question

Raindrop

Biology

27 February, 22:02

To prepare for a hiking trip in the Appalachian mountains you buy several field guides for the region from a used bookstore. You notice that the older guides list a single species of tiger swallowtail butterfly Papilio glaucus and an Appalachian morph of this species. However the newest guide list two separate species P. glaucus and P. appalachiensis. The authors of this guide state that the biological species concept was used in determining their classifications. What do you think led them to list two separate species of tiger swallowtail?

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Answers (1)

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Yazmin Koch · Answer 1

It seems that novel evidence about the origin of two species has appeared after the publication of the first guide

Explanation:

The biological species concept states that the members of the same species are potentially capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring. In this case, it is possible that fertile hybrid swallowtail butterfly specimens were discovered to be P. glaucus or P. appalachiensis, and the other species is relative