[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Unless you are an identical copy of your parent and you only have one parent, you are a transitional form. We all are. As are most organisms that live, have lived, or ever will live.

Sort of invalidates the whole point to talking about "species."

[muawiyah]

Congress passed a law that appears to have turned the salmon who inhabit a particular creek into an entirely different species than the identical salmon who inhabit a different creek.

Just to let everybody here know that the concept is rather stressed at the moment.

That, BTW, turned each and every salmon into an ENDANGERED SPECIES as far as law enforcement is concerned.

The salmon protectors are brutal in the application of the law so you have to be careful when you fish for wild salmon ~ because you are into "species endangerment", a grievous crime!

Well, anyway, some of this is like discussing the identity of the individual plant in deciduous trees. Some say it's the whole critter; others say just the leaves; and yet others say "only those leaves I can clone".

Pick any species, or family of critters of great economic value ~ you'll find the nomenklatura in there trying to define the words to frustrate your use of the animal or plant.