+thebrainscoop: Great vid! I love how in Origin of the Species it was pointed out that you can have three sub-species, A-B-C, where B can breed viably with C or A. However, if B goes extinct then A and C are now considered Species not Sub-species, as they can't interbreed
This channel has become the greatest biology haven in youtube. I wish the Green brothers would summon you Emily to remake SciShow Biology, because with this kind of accurate, well rounded content you produce, I have no doubts you could feed much more brains than the ones you already do here.
+Anonymous Unknown Not at all. I am saying that Emily could take a much broader section of Biology(up to college level for sure), unlike the Green brothers who mostly stay at the high school level, something that bothers me quite a lot.
Wow! As a biology student currently taking a Speciation course, you have done a fabulous job at summarizing the main topics! Gosh I love your videos, thank you for doing such a wonderful job! Keep them coming!
The bit that gets me about the evolutionary tree is that it all goes back to one original 'species'. Hence, life came about once. Just once. Then it replicated itself
+Robert Heath In the strict sense of the phrase, not really... well... it's complicated, you could say it was a collection of proto-life organisms, that had different characteristics and that were already exchanging information among themselves, in other words species and natural or (chemical) selection predates life. Therefore by the time that L.U.C.A. (last universal common ancester) originated, he was one among a whole collection of other organisms which still passed chunks of information among themselves, if you ever look at those phylogenetic trees you will see that the oldest parts of its branches don't just "split" but also combine among themselves. L.U.C.A. is just an extension of this behaviour which as I said started before we considered those organisms to be alive. Can we point out to a single organism which is directly responsible for everything? Sure, but this organism was never alone, in the same sense that the "first" human wasn't.
Nyx & Hemera that was really interesting thank you. I'd never truly considered the chemical evolution before, and I've just done some reading on the topic since you spurred my curiosity. So yeh, thanks! :)
There's actually a reason for that. All lifeforms on earth share about 20% of DNA code. During the abiogenesis stage some 3.5 billion years ago, the earliest cells formed as a protective shell and a reproduction agent for coils of DNA and RNA. All the mechanisms between the various cells had to be compatible for the symbiotic evolutionary stages in early lifeforms, therefore they had to share large portions of the RNA/DNA code, which was first created by chance. Other self-duplicating RNA/DNA that wasn't successful in creating a cellular shell, lost in competition with the first one that succeeded. There might have been multiple abiogeneses 3.5 billion years, but only one could succeed, the other free RNA/DNA coils died out before forming the first cell. Even viruses share much of our DNA, otherwise they could not use our cells for self-duplication. Viruses survived because they could hijack the mature DNA-compatible cell.
THANK YOU! This simplistic definition of species has pissed me off for ages! I knew several examples of fertile cetacean hybrids when this was originally taught to me. Being taught something you know is over simplified is so frustrating! Love that you've gone in depth into this :)
Hey Emily! Nice video, you did a really good job at going into the nitty gritty of the mess of what species are sometimes. You said the word sustainability and it reminded me of a talk I went to a few weeks ago. The speaker mentioned that the word has lost a lot of meaning because it gets tossed around so much in popular culture now. Maybe you could help elucidate the concept similar to what you did here! ❤
Emily Graslie I adore what you do, and just promise you will keep on doing it. You have such a unique channel and it's by far one of my absolute favourite science channels. I wish Hank Green would promote you more, you deserve more subscribers.
+KM Meltesen My background on this topic was pretty weak since going into it this video I thought it was a fairly straight-forward question. So, I had to have lots of conversations with lots of researchers around the building to get a feel for the direction of the video, and I had to define my own goal for it. My goal was that, after watching this, people would have a broader understanding of some of the complications in traditional naming conventions, and an increased appreciation for the complexities of life. If that is what happened, then yay! Goal accomplished. That part of it is important because I couldn't easily go to a researcher and say, "I want this video to be a comprehensive overview of all species concepts." That's not even feasible, nor would it be a well-watched video. It'd... be like an hour-long thing leaving you with more questions than answers. I read a ton of papers on species concepts, went back to our researchers, asked more questions. In meetings, I take lots of notes. Once I had a script I was happy with, I sent it around to get feedback. Then, I incorporate that and tweak stuff. Finally, it's uploaded into an app and I can read the whole thing off of a teleprompter, but by that point I've reworked it so many times I've got chunks memorized anyway. I love The Brain Scoop because it really puts me in a position to learn new things, and forces me to understand them well enough that the information can be disseminated to the public. I was nervous about this video because it's dense, and species concepts are highly controversial in biology. But so far, I haven't received any scathing reviews from colleagues or academics. I am absolutely joyous and proud of what I've done. There is a great sense of accomplishment after doing something like this. :)
+thebrainscoop To be honest, I am always left with more question than answers when I watch your channel. But that is why I love watching it. It sparks my curiosity.
I love how articulate you are. You are a fantastic science educator, in part due to your communication skills. Thanks for the great video on evolutionary concepts.
+Dana Lee Gibson You are not stupid, according to Emily she knew pretty much the same information you did when starting to research this video, this doesn't mean she was stupid, this means that she lacked the knowledge on the subject, everyone lacks knowledge over different things, there is no one that just knows it all, intelligence is just our ability to comprehend new information when we face it and incorporate it with our previous knowledge, you aren't stupid for not knowing physics or biology you are ignorant of those topics, but as I said, we are all ignorant in different things, the day we stop bragging about our knowledge and simply pass this information in a humble way while recognizing that we can all learn something from each other we will be able to have conversations without being arrogant or feeling that someone is being arrogant for teaching us something we don't know. I learn stuff from all sorts of people all the time and I grown to appreciate the fact that I can learn something new from almost every single person I encounter.
Being a biology major and a photographer I've always thought of this problem as the difference between a frame and the video from which you got it. You can call the frame a "species" but its still part of a larger whole: the movie. Life is always changing, even current species are changing. The problem is not only in defining past life or even nailing down current life... its a perpetual problem.
You discussed animals but plants are so much more randy. They not only breed across "species" boundaries but there are intergeneric hybrids. Arrrggghhh.
+Zeyev It gets especially weird with species in the genus Rubus - blackberries, raspberries, cloudberries, etc. There's an awful lot of species, although many might just be natural hybrids...
+Zeyev Also, what happens with the tree when humans purposefully create new species? Like triticale, which is a hybrid of wheat and rye. Normally, these two species cannot hybridize and produce fertile offspring. They are also in completely different genus. However, by using a mutagenic chemical called colchicine, humans were able to induce polyploidy in one of the two being hybridized and that resulted in an even genome and, thus, fertile hybrid. And triticale was born. Does this count as a new species? It's been used for decades now and is very widespread.
elfboi523 It just seems like the scientific community is very hesitant to qualify anything we have been involved in making as a separate species. It seems that the idea that we have a significant effect on nature and its development is hard for some to come to grips with.
Silverizael Well, at least most domestic animals aren't separate species, they're just artificial subspecies of wild ones - although several wild ones are extinct now, like the ancestors of our cattle. When it comes to plants, however, most of those are so radically different from their wild ancestors that they're definitely not the same species anymore. Just look at maize.
Slightly hilarious that I was only studying the concept of species (even talked about Meadowlarks) a couple of weeks ago in my uni course. Maybe I should suggest this video to my lecturer for next year's lecture on it.
Emily, I am an aide. To my old eyes some of your symetry has changed, you may want to bring this up with your primary physician at next check up. Love your work and sense of humor.
+Matthew Schell At some point in the future though, if we continue along the same path, these dogs will indeed be different sub-species or species. What is odd about dogs is that, they have such massive differences between breeds, that if they were all extinct millions of years ago, paleontologists (while looking at the fossils)would definitely consider them many different species, instead of breeds of one individual species.
Dogs are all one species because they are all able to breed with each other, if not on their own, then with human intervention. Secondly they all fill the same ecological roles.
+Joshua Medina Do they really though? Dachshunds can hunt badgers, while great Danes can't, sheepdogs are used to heard sheep, whereas chihuahuas aren't too useful at that, etc.
If I remember well there're some animals that can form a "ring interbreeding chain". An animal A can interbreed with an animal B, B can interbreed with C but C cannot interbreed with A. According to Biological species concept... what the hell is going on?! Defining things is a hard work... However, you made a great classification of the classification techniques used to classify animals. Big fan of your work!
Also, a big problem with taxonomy (and it's not their fault), is semantics. We are trying to describe things using our limited language. We are also trying to describe groups of individuals in a continuum
what is the purpose of species level differentiation? if we are having so much trouble, why not create more arbitary terms that defines these new characteristics
+pramitbanerjee Defining and differentiating between species is important in being able to study organisms so that everyone knows what animal you're talking about. I think the fact that we have so many different definitions of a species shows that we can't find a single one which holds true for EVERY species we know about. As Emily pointed out, there are always exceptions! :)
In your day to day sciencing, do situations where a very precise, albeit a slightly rigid definition of species is required for the science to on arise much?
Wow, I love the comments here! We not only are enthusiastic about biology, but also colours, sounds, math and many more just from this video. So awesome, folks!
One thing I wish would be discussed more is why folks obsess so much with putting organisms in such sharply defined categories. Oh sure, it is enormously complicated and you have to organize things somehow to hope to understand it. But as you point out, no one system even works for everything. And the lines aren't sharp, and even if they are now for some or most species, there necessarily was a time in evolutionary history when they weren't. I can understand sharp lined taxonomy as a card catalogue, but it just seems obsessive to want to fit everything in a neat box scientifically. This is especially weird in microbiology where not only is non sexual reproduction the norm, but species regularly exchange genetic information. Like you said, it's all one tree.
+Olivier Koot I guess the Field Museum doesn't really like it that much and they think it doesn't fit their image if there's too much gore. The early episodes had this raw and sarcastic and fresh feel to them that has now become just this generic inspirational "science popularization for the whole family, yaay!"
My english is a little rusty( I am Italian), but... aren't genetic code and genome two different things entirely? As far as i remember the genome is the genetic material of an organism while the genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded within genetic material (DNA or mRNA sequences) is translated into proteins by living cells and it is he same in almost all organims
It seems to me like simple working hypotheses, as most things in language. A simple dogma for the sake of communication. What I wonder, is when the point comes, when our decendants decide that they are different enough from us to reclassify themselves. (And if they will be a bit more creative than to just keep adding sapiens.)
Thank you Emily,this is one of your top best videos. It´s like the most controversial question of all time xD Thank you for helping all of the cientific community with your divulgation.
Yesss. I needed this. Going to a very religious med school can get exhausting when professors like to blatantly refuse evolution and go on about it in the middle of lecture when it has absolutely nothing to do with the class. I needed some Darwin in my life right about now.
do you identify as a lumper or a splitter? and in your field/experience/life, how have you seen lumpers v splitters pan out? since h. naledi, i've been really interested and conflicted about speciation within genera. and do you agree with how some groups define species based on ecological and population needs? like, with some monkeys they reclassify populations as different species once they form smaller groups and travel to different areas so they can be put on the endangered animal list and get more attention but they can still breed successfully
Question: How come the ecological species concept applies to bears, but not gorillas? Don't mountain and lowland gorillas have pretty different biological niches? What makes them the different subspecies of the same species? I've wondered similar things about dog breeds; some of those have differences in shape bigger than those between bears, but they're not different species either?
Considering that most other animals most likely classify things into only three groups (food, not food and bad, BAD thing) our obsession with making so many classes of things and naming EVERYTHING is pretty weird. Bad, BAD things? those are the things that put you into the "food" category, or at least those scary things that could kill you.
How would finding two fossiles in a compromising position help anyway? I mean, if you'd find a Homo neanderthalensis caught by a lava stream while humping a prehistoric goat, that wouldn't mean that the tho lovebirds belong to the same species, would it?
+Zogg from Betelgeuse You bring up a compelling counterargument to my example. You're right; finding the fossils themselves doesn't confirm the two organisms would have viable offspring, either.
As always, awesome video!! But... What in the world is happening in that mural behind you..? Because I can clearly see a jelly fish eating some bats.. lol! It is both awesome and slightly disturbing, i must know more! :)
+Michael Stewart That's "All Together" by artist Alta Buden! It's in a lecture room off the exhibit halls in the Museum. First time I saw it I was blown away. It's wacky, confusing, and delightful. I've wanted to use it for a backdrop in a video for a while and this seemed most appropriate! I'm sorta blocking it, but my favorite part is the octopus winding around the narwhal in the bottom, although there are cool little Easter eggs throughout the whole thing.
The biological definition of species (A and B are the same species iff A and B can produce fertile offspring) fails to define classes because it is not an equivalence relation, since it fails the transitivity condition. That is; there are three "kinds" of birds, A,B,C for which A and B can mate, B and C can mate but A and C cannot. So the definition would say that A and B are same species, B and C are same species, but A and C are not. I forget the exact examples for A,B,C here, if anyone knows some that satisfy this then feel free to share.
Polar bears sometimes go to the mainland where they indeed sometimes mate with brown bears and they even eat berries while there are no berries on the north pole.
Great explanation for all the different techniques used to gather evidence of a species! It brings to mind an article I read recently about the true history of what we call red wolves. How they were thought to be a distinct species of wolf due to their physiology and preference for breeding with each other over gray wolves or coyotes. But recent genetic studies of them show that they have no unique genetic traits and are actually a cross between a gray wolf and a coyote. In my opinion, this is a case of a new species in early development. A type of speciation that has not really been studied much before, where two species turns into three. This has created a really tough area for scientists and conservationists, because as the law stands now, it is illegal to kill red wolves, but if they are declassified as a species then they will be under no such protection and we will almost certainly wipe them out before it gets a chance to "fully form" or spit off from its parent species. What is your opinion on all this? Or have you heard any news of how this new information is being integrated into our knowledge of evolution?
+k maghran Oh, goodness, no. Videos from 'Millipedes' to present day are filmed/edited by Brandon Brungard, whose work you may recognize from Art Assignment, or Crash Course Economics (and soon: Gaming!)
You looked really cute in this video! Very informative! I love biology, but my diff courses in high school have me burned out and hating my passions. These videos keep me going, thank you!
Amazing work! I will be showing this video in my intro biology lab when I teach evolution in a couple of weeks. Thank you so much for all the wonderful education videos you make!
![Encyclopedia of Mythological Beings - Water's Dark Depths [Aquatic Entities]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rakUVLAVtIg/mqdefault.jpg)
This is a beast of a topic, and you explained it wonderfully. Very good work!
+It's Okay To Be Smart Thanks, Joe!
+thebrainscoop I agree. That was a very complicated issue. Well done, as always!
your channel is great :)
Yo.
I love how good you are at not only explaining what the concept is, but why we should care. Thanks for all your hard work!
Don't even get me started on the ontological positions of 'species' as they exist in four-dimensionalism
+thebrainscoop Amazing video as always.
+thebrainscoop I saw you at W.I.S.E and I automatically fell in love with you ( not awkwardly ) Thank you for inspiring me!
+thebrainscoop: Great vid! I love how in Origin of the Species it was pointed out that you can have three sub-species, A-B-C, where B can breed viably with C or A. However, if B goes extinct then A and C are now considered Species not Sub-species, as they can't interbreed
Please do start!
Yes, do it!
I am honoured to be part of the same species as Emily Graslie.
And assuming that the offspring would be fertile.
and thats just the biological species concept
same
This channel has become the greatest biology haven in youtube. I wish the Green brothers would summon you Emily to remake SciShow Biology, because with this kind of accurate, well rounded content you produce, I have no doubts you could feed much more brains than the ones you already do here.
are you saying hank and john videos are erroneous?
+Anonymous Unknown Not at all. I am saying that Emily could take a much broader section of Biology(up to college level for sure), unlike the Green brothers who mostly stay at the high school level, something that bothers me quite a lot.
Wow! As a biology student currently taking a Speciation course, you have done a fabulous job at summarizing the main topics! Gosh I love your videos, thank you for doing such a wonderful job! Keep them coming!
Every word in this video showed how you love what you study. This is so nice to see!
The bit that gets me about the evolutionary tree is that it all goes back to one original 'species'. Hence, life came about once. Just once. Then it replicated itself
+Robert Heath isn't that just wild
+Robert Heath In the strict sense of the phrase, not really... well... it's complicated, you could say it was a collection of proto-life organisms, that had different characteristics and that were already exchanging information among themselves, in other words species and natural or (chemical) selection predates life. Therefore by the time that L.U.C.A. (last universal common ancester) originated, he was one among a whole collection of other organisms which still passed chunks of information among themselves, if you ever look at those phylogenetic trees you will see that the oldest parts of its branches don't just "split" but also combine among themselves. L.U.C.A. is just an extension of this behaviour which as I said started before we considered those organisms to be alive.
Can we point out to a single organism which is directly responsible for everything? Sure, but this organism was never alone, in the same sense that the "first" human wasn't.
Nyx & Hemera that was really interesting thank you. I'd never truly considered the chemical evolution before, and I've just done some reading on the topic since you spurred my curiosity. So yeh, thanks! :)
Connor Hill hadn't thought of that
There's actually a reason for that.
All lifeforms on earth share about 20% of DNA code. During the
abiogenesis stage some 3.5 billion years ago, the earliest cells formed
as a protective shell and a reproduction agent for coils of DNA and RNA.
All the mechanisms between the various cells had to be compatible for
the symbiotic evolutionary stages in early lifeforms, therefore they had
to share large portions of the RNA/DNA code, which was first created by
chance. Other self-duplicating RNA/DNA that wasn't successful in
creating a cellular shell, lost in competition with the first one that
succeeded.
There might have been multiple abiogeneses 3.5 billion years, but only
one could succeed, the other free RNA/DNA coils died out before forming
the first cell. Even viruses share much of our DNA, otherwise they
could not use our cells for self-duplication. Viruses survived because
they could hijack the mature DNA-compatible cell.
The production values of your videos are just outstanding. Thanks so much for putting them out there. I learn something from every one.
I'm actually in the "species definition" section of On the Origin of Species, and this helps clear things up tremendously. Thanks!
THANK YOU! This simplistic definition of species has pissed me off for ages! I knew several examples of fertile cetacean hybrids when this was originally taught to me. Being taught something you know is over simplified is so frustrating! Love that you've gone in depth into this :)
Hey Emily! Nice video, you did a really good job at going into the nitty gritty of the mess of what species are sometimes.
You said the word sustainability and it reminded me of a talk I went to a few weeks ago. The speaker mentioned that the word has lost a lot of meaning because it gets tossed around so much in popular culture now. Maybe you could help elucidate the concept similar to what you did here! ❤
The description of species as hypothesis at (1:15) was a real eye opener for me, thank you so much for that
Video production and content quality is a solid 5/7. Subscribed.
Emily Graslie I adore what you do, and just promise you will keep on doing it. You have such a unique channel and it's by far one of my absolute favourite science channels. I wish Hank Green would promote you more, you deserve more subscribers.
Emily, how do you prepare for you videos? Do you memorize everything, or read off a script? How much background knowledge do you have going in?
+KM Meltesen My background on this topic was pretty weak since going into it this video I thought it was a fairly straight-forward question. So, I had to have lots of conversations with lots of researchers around the building to get a feel for the direction of the video, and I had to define my own goal for it. My goal was that, after watching this, people would have a broader understanding of some of the complications in traditional naming conventions, and an increased appreciation for the complexities of life. If that is what happened, then yay! Goal accomplished. That part of it is important because I couldn't easily go to a researcher and say, "I want this video to be a comprehensive overview of all species concepts." That's not even feasible, nor would it be a well-watched video. It'd... be like an hour-long thing leaving you with more questions than answers.
I read a ton of papers on species concepts, went back to our researchers, asked more questions. In meetings, I take lots of notes. Once I had a script I was happy with, I sent it around to get feedback. Then, I incorporate that and tweak stuff. Finally, it's uploaded into an app and I can read the whole thing off of a teleprompter, but by that point I've reworked it so many times I've got chunks memorized anyway.
I love The Brain Scoop because it really puts me in a position to learn new things, and forces me to understand them well enough that the information can be disseminated to the public. I was nervous about this video because it's dense, and species concepts are highly controversial in biology. But so far, I haven't received any scathing reviews from colleagues or academics. I am absolutely joyous and proud of what I've done. There is a great sense of accomplishment after doing something like this. :)
+thebrainscoop To be honest, I am always left with more question than answers when I watch your channel. But that is why I love watching it. It sparks my curiosity.
Next time a video about molecular evolution?
thebrainscoop I've been fascinated with this since I first found out about the platypus in 1st grade. Thanks for educating me!!
Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Yet another video that could hold the channel up all by itself. I really loved it. :)
I love how articulate you are. You are a fantastic science educator, in part due to your communication skills. Thanks for the great video on evolutionary concepts.
Emily makes me feel good about being stupid.
Its comforting to know someone out there is so smart and keeping track of all this stuff.
+Dana Lee Gibson You are not stupid, according to Emily she knew pretty much the same information you did when starting to research this video, this doesn't mean she was stupid, this means that she lacked the knowledge on the subject, everyone lacks knowledge over different things, there is no one that just knows it all, intelligence is just our ability to comprehend new information when we face it and incorporate it with our previous knowledge, you aren't stupid for not knowing physics or biology you are ignorant of those topics, but as I said, we are all ignorant in different things, the day we stop bragging about our knowledge and simply pass this information in a humble way while recognizing that we can all learn something from each other we will be able to have conversations without being arrogant or feeling that someone is being arrogant for teaching us something we don't know. I learn stuff from all sorts of people all the time and I grown to appreciate the fact that I can learn something new from almost every single person I encounter.
Being a biology major and a photographer I've always thought of this problem as the difference between a frame and the video from which you got it. You can call the frame a "species" but its still part of a larger whole: the movie. Life is always changing, even current species are changing. The problem is not only in defining past life or even nailing down current life... its a perpetual problem.
You discussed animals but plants are so much more randy. They not only breed across "species" boundaries but there are intergeneric hybrids. Arrrggghhh.
+Zeyev It gets especially weird with species in the genus Rubus - blackberries, raspberries, cloudberries, etc. There's an awful lot of species, although many might just be natural hybrids...
+Zeyev Also, what happens with the tree when humans purposefully create new species? Like triticale, which is a hybrid of wheat and rye. Normally, these two species cannot hybridize and produce fertile offspring. They are also in completely different genus. However, by using a mutagenic chemical called colchicine, humans were able to induce polyploidy in one of the two being hybridized and that resulted in an even genome and, thus, fertile hybrid.
And triticale was born. Does this count as a new species? It's been used for decades now and is very widespread.
Silverizael Well, it happens in nature, but it's extremely rare. And of course it's a new species.
elfboi523 It just seems like the scientific community is very hesitant to qualify anything we have been involved in making as a separate species. It seems that the idea that we have a significant effect on nature and its development is hard for some to come to grips with.
Silverizael Well, at least most domestic animals aren't separate species, they're just artificial subspecies of wild ones - although several wild ones are extinct now, like the ancestors of our cattle. When it comes to plants, however, most of those are so radically different from their wild ancestors that they're definitely not the same species anymore. Just look at maize.
I really loved the way you simplify such a complex matter :) And all your other videos, showing the human and fun behind science!
So cool that you also raise the more difficult and philosophical questions in biology :-)
Slightly hilarious that I was only studying the concept of species (even talked about Meadowlarks) a couple of weeks ago in my uni course. Maybe I should suggest this video to my lecturer for next year's lecture on it.
+xoxoNateJennyxoxo Please do! (and let me know what they think :D )
Where is the mural that you're standing in front of? It looks really cool, and I'd love to see it in its entirety!
Emily, I am an aide. To my old eyes some of your symetry has changed, you may want to bring this up with your primary physician at next check up. Love your work and sense of humor.
I understood everything while it was being explained but forgot everything 2 seconds after the video ended
Again, the truth resists simplicity. Great video!
Funny how the Eastern and Western Meadowlark are so similar yet different species. However you have a vast variety of dogs under one umbrella.
+Matthew Schell At some point in the future though, if we continue along the same path, these dogs will indeed be different sub-species or species. What is odd about dogs is that, they have such massive differences between breeds, that if they were all extinct millions of years ago, paleontologists (while looking at the fossils)would definitely consider them many different species, instead of breeds of one individual species.
Dogs are all one species because they are all able to breed with each other, if not on their own, then with human intervention. Secondly they all fill the same ecological roles.
+Joshua Medina
Do they really though? Dachshunds can hunt badgers, while great Danes can't, sheepdogs are used to heard sheep, whereas chihuahuas aren't too useful at that, etc.
If I remember well there're some animals that can form a "ring interbreeding
chain". An animal A can interbreed with an animal B, B can interbreed with
C but C cannot interbreed with A. According to Biological species concept...
what the hell is going on?!
Defining things is a hard work... However, you made a great classification
of the classification techniques used to classify animals. Big fan of your work!
This was highly enlightening. I now have a much better appreciation for the difficulty in classifying species.
This video is fantastic. I mean I always enjoy this channel, but this video in particular, I very much liked.
This was both entertaining and very interesting for me to watch and now I shall put this information to the test for my Science exam!
Also, a big problem with taxonomy (and it's not their fault), is semantics. We are trying to describe things using our limited language. We are also trying to describe groups of individuals in a continuum
Make episodes about plant species too!
As always - An excellent educational and fun video!
Love listening to her talk 😍😍
I just received a Tree of Life poster as a gift - I'm going to use it as a background in my videos! :)
Wonderful video! I have a better understanding of why different terms are used when describing a species.
This is my favorite episode I've seen on here in a long time, I love it, please make more like this!!
what is the purpose of species level differentiation? if we are having so much trouble, why not create more arbitary terms that defines these new characteristics
+pramitbanerjee Defining and differentiating between species is important in being able to study organisms so that everyone knows what animal you're talking about. I think the fact that we have so many different definitions of a species shows that we can't find a single one which holds true for EVERY species we know about. As Emily pointed out, there are always exceptions! :)
sad all the links cut off early in the description :(
+silver Harloe Fixed!
The background is beautiful in this video. Is it new? or have I just not noticed.
Props to the person who painted it.
one of my absolute favorite RUclips channels. Keep up the great work Emily and the whole Brainscoop team!
In your day to day sciencing, do situations where a very precise, albeit a slightly rigid definition of species is required for the science to on arise much?
Wow, I love the comments here! We not only are enthusiastic about biology, but also colours, sounds, math and many more just from this video. So awesome, folks!
Beautifully explained - definitely adding it to the supplemental video list I'll be giving my Animal Biology students next semester. Thanks, Emily!
Beautiful video Emily
I love this video. Wish the online Trees of Life were a bit more user-friendly.
Thank you thebrainscoop. This format works very well. I really enjoyed this video.
Great video! You seem very enthousiastic about the subject and you communicated it very well!
Awesome video! Could you possibly do an episode all about viruses?
One thing I wish would be discussed more is why folks obsess so much with putting organisms in such sharply defined categories. Oh sure, it is enormously complicated and you have to organize things somehow to hope to understand it. But as you point out, no one system even works for everything. And the lines aren't sharp, and even if they are now for some or most species, there necessarily was a time in evolutionary history when they weren't. I can understand sharp lined taxonomy as a card catalogue, but it just seems obsessive to want to fit everything in a neat box scientifically. This is especially weird in microbiology where not only is non sexual reproduction the norm, but species regularly exchange genetic information. Like you said, it's all one tree.
I subscribed for the dissections, can you make some more of those videos?
+Olivier Koot I guess the Field Museum doesn't really like it that much and they think it doesn't fit their image if there's too much gore. The early episodes had this raw and sarcastic and fresh feel to them that has now become just this generic inspirational "science popularization for the whole family, yaay!"
My english is a little rusty( I am Italian), but... aren't genetic code and genome two different things entirely? As far as i remember the genome is the genetic material of an organism while the genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded within genetic material (DNA or mRNA sequences) is translated into proteins by living cells and it is he same in almost all organims
I can't geek out hard enough over how cool this video is for me in my current intellectual journey with Taxonomy!!!!
great video emily! i love how smoothly you segued between definitions.
It seems to me like simple working hypotheses, as most things in language. A simple dogma for the sake of communication.
What I wonder, is when the point comes, when our decendants decide that they are different enough from us to reclassify themselves. (And if they will be a bit more creative than to just keep adding sapiens.)
Thank you Emily,this is one of your top best videos. It´s like the most controversial question of all time xD
Thank you for helping all of the cientific community with your divulgation.
Yesss. I needed this. Going to a very religious med school can get exhausting when professors like to blatantly refuse evolution and go on about it in the middle of lecture when it has absolutely nothing to do with the class. I needed some Darwin in my life right about now.
Time to change schools. Professors who knowingly lie to you about the basics are not to be trusted about anything!
i really like the "pop pop pop" noise when the texts pops up.
Great video Em. Spot on.
do you identify as a lumper or a splitter? and in your field/experience/life, how have you seen lumpers v splitters pan out? since h. naledi, i've been really interested and conflicted about speciation within genera. and do you agree with how some groups define species based on ecological and population needs? like, with some monkeys they reclassify populations as different species once they form smaller groups and travel to different areas so they can be put on the endangered animal list and get more attention but they can still breed successfully
Question: How come the ecological species concept applies to bears, but not gorillas? Don't mountain and lowland gorillas have pretty different biological niches? What makes them the different subspecies of the same species?
I've wondered similar things about dog breeds; some of those have differences in shape bigger than those between bears, but they're not different species either?
This was a very good video. Thanks
Wow, this was such a comprehensively researched and presented video! **sigh** Why can't we all be as smart as Emily...
At first I thought this video sounds quite basic but then I learned :)
One of your better videos, Emily. Thx.
That mural is amazing. Narwal vs. giant octopus! Adorable baby rhino! Flying bat-eating jellyfish!
Love this. The evolution exhibit at the Field is my favorite.
Mine too!!!
This would have been a life saver for my taxonomy exam last week! It gets much more complicated though
Great video, Emily. Your hard work paid off.
Considering that most other animals most likely classify things into only three groups (food, not food and bad, BAD thing) our obsession with making so many classes of things and naming EVERYTHING is pretty weird.
Bad, BAD things? those are the things that put you into the "food" category, or at least those scary things that could kill you.
That's an interesting approach. It would mean a wolf and an active volcano fall into the same category in the eyes of a cute little rabbit, right?
Absolutely brilliant Emily and the next time I hear someone mention "kind" I will have them watch this...kiddo your wonderful
+Keith Durant Someone: "Keith, you're so kind"
Keith: "WATCH IT, WATCH IT NOW!"
How would finding two fossiles in a compromising position help anyway? I mean, if you'd find a Homo neanderthalensis caught by a lava stream while humping a prehistoric goat, that wouldn't mean that the tho lovebirds belong to the same species, would it?
+Zogg from Betelgeuse You bring up a compelling counterargument to my example. You're right; finding the fossils themselves doesn't confirm the two organisms would have viable offspring, either.
Do more insect and bug videos those are always the best
Excellent video.
Make it more clear
As always, awesome video!! But... What in the world is happening in that mural behind you..? Because I can clearly see a jelly fish eating some bats.. lol! It is both awesome and slightly disturbing, i must know more! :)
+Michael Stewart That's "All Together" by artist Alta Buden! It's in a lecture room off the exhibit halls in the Museum. First time I saw it I was blown away. It's wacky, confusing, and delightful. I've wanted to use it for a backdrop in a video for a while and this seemed most appropriate! I'm sorta blocking it, but my favorite part is the octopus winding around the narwhal in the bottom, although there are cool little Easter eggs throughout the whole thing.
*****
It's pretty awesome!
Brainscoop is back! I've been waiting for this! Horray!
+thebrainscoop Clear, concise, and great flow between definitions. Great video, thanks!
As always, great video
Thank you
The biological definition of species (A and B are the same species iff A and B can produce fertile offspring) fails to define classes because it is not an equivalence relation, since it fails the transitivity condition. That is; there are three "kinds" of birds, A,B,C for which A and B can mate, B and C can mate but A and C cannot. So the definition would say that A and B are same species, B and C are same species, but A and C are not. I forget the exact examples for A,B,C here, if anyone knows some that satisfy this then feel free to share.
Polar bears sometimes go to the mainland where they indeed sometimes mate with brown bears and they even eat berries while there are no berries on the north pole.
What advice do you have for creating science RUclips videos? I love science, but it's not like I'm an expert or anything...
Carl Zimmer's article in 2008 is pretty cool for further understanding of the historic line of definitions of species, If I'm not outdated. :D
dear emily, your wing earrings are awesome, but why are you wearing the right wing on the left, and the left wing on the right?! and...great video!
Very nice channel, like from Brazil.
Thanks you
excellent video!
Interesting and encouraging video:)!
It's good to learn some of the theories behind nature once in a while.
Great explanation for all the different techniques used to gather evidence of a species!
It brings to mind an article I read recently about the true history of what we call red wolves. How they were thought to be a distinct species of wolf due to their physiology and preference for breeding with each other over gray wolves or coyotes. But recent genetic studies of them show that they have no unique genetic traits and are actually a cross between a gray wolf and a coyote.
In my opinion, this is a case of a new species in early development. A type of speciation that has not really been studied much before, where two species turns into three.
This has created a really tough area for scientists and conservationists, because as the law stands now, it is illegal to kill red wolves, but if they are declassified as a species then they will be under no such protection and we will almost certainly wipe them out before it gets a chance to "fully form" or spit off from its parent species.
What is your opinion on all this? Or have you heard any news of how this new information is being integrated into our knowledge of evolution?
wow! learned a ton of stuff from this video. great job! and Emily you are so eloquent, i love listening to you talk :D
This all reminds me, is there any consensus on whether viruses are considered to be alive? Is Ebola a species?
Waited for reference to ring species, never happened :-(
Do you edit your own videos?
+k maghran Oh, goodness, no. Videos from 'Millipedes' to present day are filmed/edited by Brandon Brungard, whose work you may recognize from Art Assignment, or Crash Course Economics (and soon: Gaming!)
Ok thank you
Very informative
You looked really cute in this video! Very informative! I love biology, but my diff courses in high school have me burned out and hating my passions. These videos keep me going, thank you!
Amazing work! I will be showing this video in my intro biology lab when I teach evolution in a couple of weeks. Thank you so much for all the wonderful education videos you make!