Animals That Seem Identical May Be Completely Different Species

Description

Animals That Seem Identical May Be Completely Different Species
ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2009) — Animals that seem identical may belong to completely different species. This is the conclusion of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who have used DNA analyses to discover that one of our most common segmented worms is actually two types of worm.




Lumbriculus variegatus worm. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Gothenburg)

The result is one of many suggesting that the variety of species on Earth could be considerably larger than we thought.
"We could be talking about a large number of species that have existed undiscovered because they resemble other known species," says Professor Christer Erséus.
The segmented worms that were studied by Christer Erséus, doctoral student Daniel Gustavsson and their American colleague, are identical in appearance. From the very first time that they were described, they have been treated as the same species, and they are also found together in freshwater environments in North America, Sweden and the rest of Europe.
But when the researchers examined the worms using advanced methods for DNA analysis, they discovered that they were in fact two different species. Both species of worm differ2

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090422121858.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090422121858.htm