Ring Species!!

There are a group of dragonflies in the genus Orthemis that appear to be a ring species. I am not sure if any papers have been published yet that document this fully, but a number of Odonate workers are studying it. These dragonflies are found from Florida, through the Caribbean, through northern South America, through Central America and Mexico, into Texas and across the southern states. One interesting thing is that several of the species in this complex have males with two or more color morphs.Photos of some of the members of this complex can be seen at: http://www.ups.edu/x6318.xml

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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty PythonYou can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

You are right, there could be more than one ring. This is one of the things that makes studying dragonflies (and many other insect orders) so exciting. Trying to unravel the relationships of these species complexes and their evolutionary history is what gives some of our lives meaning. The best part is....we never run out of new questions.* LOL!! As far as I know, no one has ever bred dragonflies. Dragonfly adults do not do well in captivity, although they might do alright in a large atrium. Usually Odonate species and sub-species have a number of barriers (visual cues, morphological features, behaviors) that prevent interbreeding. We do occasionally find hybrids, (coincidentally, I did the illustrations for a recently published paper on two damselfly hybrids) but no one knows if they are sterile or not. Dragonfly mating behavior is very complex and completely different from reproduction in all the other insect orders.*The IDists/Creationist never get this! We don't care if they don't accept evolution. We are mostly too busy studying the evolution of our favorite groups of organisms to worry about them. In all the years they have been around they have not given us a single tool to help us study biology because the tool that actually works in the field or in the lab is the Theory of Evolution.

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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty PythonYou can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

What is your point? What do they have to do with ring species and can you show that ANY of them WERE believers in Supernatural Intelligent Design?And more to the point, did any of them give us any tools of Supernatural Intelligent Design that any scientists today are using? What do their religious beliefs have to do with science? Are they sequencing genes for Jesus or what? This convinces me that you are just pulling numbers out of your ass and probably have never even spoken to a Geneticist. The fossil record is pretty good for Odonates (dragonflies & damselflies) and spans almost 400 million years. They show a VERY LARGE amount of variation and change over that period. Hundreds of species of fossil insects have been described and many thousands of species are living today. Dozens of un-described species are being discovered every year. How sad for you that your life is so boring. Fortunately for myself and hundreds of my colleges you are wrong!

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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty PythonYou can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

I ask what are those tools and what do they have to do with ID? So, what is your definition of the process of evolution and the Theory of Evolution? If you want us to take your criticisms seriously we would like to know that you know what you are talking about. I am not sure what you mean by inherent variation. Proof of intelligent design....well if YOU say so it must be true. Would you please explain this proof a little more fully? I see the Nobel Prize in your future.

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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty PythonYou can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley