Species
In biology, a species (plural: species) is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem. Differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology, or ecological niche. Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae).
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Famous quotes containing the word species:
“Our species successfully raised children for tens of thousands of years before the first person wrote down the word “psychology.” The fundamental skills needed to be a parent are within us. All we’re really doing is fine-tuning a process that’s already remarkably successful.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and bodies. The poor beasts here are pursued and run down by much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country, which no other part of the globe produces.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat ... but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.”
—Anita Brookner (b. 1938)