New bird species can arise in two generations
Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 1:53 pm
New Zealand birdwatching discussion forum.
https://www.birdingnz.net/forum/
As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only by very short and slow steps. Hence the canon of "Natura non facit saltum," which every fresh addition to our knowledge tends to make more strictly correct, is on this theory simply intelligible.
Liam Ballard wrote:Interesting.... Clearly I need to brush up on my evolutionary biology. So it is then conceivable that the New Zealand Mallard (Anas novaseelandae) (yes I just made that up!) could have arisen within a few years of Mallard x Grey Duck hybridisation given the right conditions?