Provider: Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic TY - JOUR JO - Anthropologie (Brno) TI - Can We Really Identify Species, Living or Extinct? AU - Schwartz JH Y1 - 1999 VL - 37 IS - 3 PB - Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic SN - 0323-1119 SP - 211 EP - 220 KW - Species KW - Homeobox gene KW - Regulatory gene KW - Structural gene KW - Mutation KW - Mendelism KW - Darwinism KW - Punctuation KW - Allopatric speciation N2 - N2 - Given the profound effects regulatory genes - especially the better known homeobox genes - have on an organism's development, it is imperative that this level of what is obviously a genetic hierarchy is incorporated into our ideas on the origin and identification of species. Since regulatory genes are inherited in the same Mendelian fashion as structural genes, but the consequences of mutations affecting the former are more profound, they are of significance in discussions of species identification. Moreover, because nonlethal mutations typically arise in the recessive state, their spread via heterozygosis throughout the population will be silent. However, when homozygotes begin to appear, the morphologies resultant from the recessive mutations will emerge as if out of nowhere - thereby underscoring the role of morphology in both delineating species and being a potentially faithful reflection of phylogenetic relationships among taxa. ER -