Deep within the labyrinthine interior of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, at the end of a cluster of corridors and stairwells, Bruce Patterson stands amid a collection of more than 58,000 bat specimens. The collection at the Field is a microcosm of natural history, told in bats.
But what if a specimen does not belong to the species written on its label? What if the collection is wrong? Patterson’s recent work, published last year in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, suggests that this might be the case. Such a finding has far-reaching implications. What if, upon closer examination, other specimens can be separated too, divorced into a constellation of interrelated but distinct species? What if, in fact, almost nothing is really what we think it is?
Increasingly, field biologists like Patterson are using novel techniques to identify new species, recategorize known species, and to study speciation — how a species becomes a species. Using molecular techniques, Patterson and Velazco compared DNA isolated from each specimen, searching for subtle differences in its genetic code based on where it was collected.
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Read the full, original story: How One Little Yellow-Shouldered Bat Became Seven Different Species
