The Conversation

Biology’s holy grail: the species and its controversial recent history

Author: The Conversation

Four species of Strepsirrhine primates.Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

How many kinds of plants and animals are there in the world? Where do humans fit within the vast fabric of life? Indeed, how did life, including humans, evolve?

At the centre of questions like these is the scientific practice of identifying and naming species, or taxonomy.

And, the...

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