A species used to mean a group of individuals who could interbreed successfully, period.
The “Endangered Species Act” decided no species, no matter how insignificant could be allowed to go extinct, no matter the cost or impact.
“Professional Biologists” suddenly had important and high paying jobs finding new species to stop or blackmail developers and project, testifying as grand and learned experts in court.
The biology professional organizations like this one focussed on ecology and speciation now call a subgroup a species if it looks a little different and is in a different location. Gee whiz, wonder why. What possible incentive would there be for that?
Thicker fur, different coloration, different reproductive preferences; by those measures human “races” and “ethnicities” are separate species.
The “Endangered Species Act” decided no species, no matter how insignificant could be allowed to go extinct, no matter the cost or impact.
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In any given subset of its possible range as determined by University Profs and grad students.