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From: hp@beta.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.med,talk.rumors,misc.headlines
Subject: Re: Life imitates art?
Message-ID: <5785@beta.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-May-87 17:07:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: beta.5785
Posted: Fri May 29 17:07:19 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 30-May-87 11:23:42 EDT
References: <6693@allegra.UUCP> <1664@tekcrl.TEK.COM> <4007@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <2255@calmasd.GE.COM>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
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Xref: utgpu sci.research:118 sci.med:1950 talk.rumors:730 misc.headlines:582
Summary: "beast"?  What's that mean?

(This seems to be going to an awful lot of groups ... well, it hasn't been
a very high-volume discussion, so I won't worry about it.)

In article <2255@calmasd.GE.COM>, jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
> In article <5438@sci.UUCP>, daver@sci.UUCP (Dave Rickel) writes:
> > I heard a rumor a while back about crosses between wild dogs and wolves
> > terrorizing farms around Moscow.
> 
> Not a rumor. Not applicable.  Wolves and dogs are the same beast - just a
> different color/size (race?).  Dogs and wolves have interbred for millenia.

What's a "beast"?  They're not the same species, last I checked --
Canis familiaris vs. C. lupus, right?  Not to dispute that they're
very closely related, or that they interbreed, both of which are true.
(Dogs also interbreed with coyotes, C. latrans (or something like that),
and dingoes, which I've seen listed both as C. familiaris dingo and as
C. dingo, a species in its own right.)  Evidently in the genus Canis,
fertile interbreeding (I think all those crosses are fertile) isn't
a criterion for defining a "species".

I don't know why they're considered different species if they interbreed.
Or are they no longer considered different species?  (I admit that I
haven't checked any recently published books on canine taxonomy.)
Can anybody fill us in?


..
	...Akkana         Center for Nonlinear Studies, LANL
	akkana%cnls@lanl.gov    hp@lanl.gov     ihnp4!lanl!hp

"I think I'll take a walk.  Hmm, wonder where this wire goes?"
			-- Max Headroom