semi-species

[Aleta Karstad]

JEAN MICHEL MAES wrote:
>
> Dear Ken Kinman,
>
> Thanks for the information. Semi-species is a concept very useful to
> explain evolution, because it is something in process.

* I'm not sure you've got information yet, except the information that
the term semi-species has been used in so many ways that it's not of any
general use.  I *own* books that would contain the zoological definition
of semi-species (almost certainly what I sent in my first reply), but I
can't *find* the unfortunate wanderers.

> I have seen also in a publication on scarab beetles
> the definition of something called CLINE, which is the same, but
> involving a serial of populations.

* well, a cline is an infra-specific phenomenon, gradual geographic
change (as in your example), but it differs from a semi-species (however
defined) in not being divisible into separate recognizeable taxa.

fred schueler.                                           Y
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