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'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

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Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#11

Post by keiferski »

Myrmornis wrote: post #10

It's an allopatric population. It's one of the great embarrassments of biology. The question "is this population part of the same 'species' as this other population" is simply not defined in biology when they are allopatric. Look at your country's bird identification guide. If you're in Europe or N. America you'll find lots of "species" that are just allopatric populations accompanied by some mtDNA / sound recording…

It’s a debated issue, not a great embarrassment.

This article is a good guide to the topic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#12

Post by Myrmornis »

keiferski wrote: post #11
Myrmornis wrote: post #10

It's an allopatric population. It's one of the great embarrassments of biology. The question "is this population part of the same 'species' as this other population" is simply not defined in biology when they are allopatric. Look at your country's bird identification guide. If you're in Europe or N. America you'll find lots of "species" that are just allopatric populations accompanied by some mtDNA / sound recording…

It’s a debated issue, not a great embarrassment. This article is a good guide to the topic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/

Thanks, I've looked at that before, but I don't think I've ever read it properly. Are you sure it's not missing the simple answer? Give up the idea that the question of whether populations are "conspecific" should be assigned a meaning.

Words are just labels we attach to concepts that we find ourselves wanting to refer to. My claim is that there is no concept in allopatry that's worth naming.

Have a look at Hey's underappreciated book (he's the first author cited in the article you linked).

It is an embarrassment: because there's a simple answer (the one I just gave), and because the confusion over "species concepts" has persisted for decades and confused generations of biologists, and hundreds, if not thousands of flawed papers have been published claiming "sufficient divergence" of allopatric populations.

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#13

Post by keiferski »

Myrmornis wrote: post #12
keiferski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a debated issue, not a great embarrassment. This article is a good guide to the topic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/

Thanks, I've looked at that before, but I don't think I've ever read it properly. Are you sure it's not missing the simple answer? Give up the idea that the question of whether populations are "conspecific" should be assigned a meaning. Words are just labels we attach to concepts that we find ourselves wanting to refer to. My claim is that there is no concept in allopatry that's worth naming. Have a look at Hey's und…

Trying to summarize a big comment into a small one here:

I think it’s more of a deeper problem with language and reality more generally. To me it seems like species is a noun, like other nouns, but reality is ultimately a process. What is needed is a “verb-based” language for describing reality.

A lot of “process philosophers” like Whitehead, Deleuze, etc. have argued similar things.

So yeah I suppose I agree it’s ultimately a taxonomy problem, but in order to fix that I think you essentially need to reinvent language entirely. So it’s not a quick fix for biologists, it’s a systemic issue that I’m not sure really has a solution from within science itself.

I know this sort of doesn’t engage directly with your comment, but process philosophy is a personal interest and I wanted to link to the SEP, heh.

I’ll check out those books though, thanks.

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#15

Post by anotherpaul »

Myrmornis wrote: post #10

It's an allopatric population. It's one of the great embarrassments of biology. The question "is this population part of the same 'species' as this other population" is simply not defined in biology when they are allopatric. Look at your country's bird identification guide. If you're in Europe or N. America you'll find lots of "species" that are just allopatric populations accompanied by some mtDNA / sound recording…

I agree that the species concept is a bit of a mess but how do you conclude that these two populations can still interbreed?

From the article I do not get the same suspicion. Even though they mention the "sister species" is 1200km removed this might be true while being a "finished" allopatric speciation.

From the paper:

"Our fossil calibrated mitochondrial clock analysis estimates the most recent common ancestor of C. congoensis and C. satanas existed ~4.27–5.78 Ma. In an additional analysis that used the same secondary calibration point as Roos and Zinner [36], we obtained younger divergence estimates by approximately 1 million years (3.44–4.73 Ma)."

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#16

Post by culi »

mmooss wrote: post #9
culi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the second paragraph explicitly says the name "likweli" is the local name for it. A lot of people seem confused about what "new species of [insert terrestrial animal]" means in 2026. Maybe it's a science communication failure. It'd be more correct and less confusing if we use "scientifically described" instead of "discovered". Even 100 years ago, almost every newly described species was already known and often n…

> A lot of people seem confused about what "new species of [insert terrestrial animal]" means in 2026. Are there comments here reflecting confusion? Species is a relatively straightforward term, especially in a relatively scientifically literate community. The researchers and authors of the article discuss surveying locals about the species. > They have a word for every modern species. Every modern species of oak gro…

You know what I meant. Every species of oak that grows there. Mexico and southern California are the epicenter of oak diversity. They can be incredibly variable in form and features due to hybridization and heterophylly

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#17

Post by jl6 »

Myrmornis wrote: post #10

It's an allopatric population. It's one of the great embarrassments of biology. The question "is this population part of the same 'species' as this other population" is simply not defined in biology when they are allopatric. Look at your country's bird identification guide. If you're in Europe or N. America you'll find lots of "species" that are just allopatric populations accompanied by some mtDNA / sound recording…

A definition that is debatable at the edges doesn’t have to be debatable at the center, so I don’t think it follows that we need to completely throw out the concept. Nature doesn’t provide neat categories, but speciation is nonetheless a real natural phenomenon that isn’t perturbed by having fuzzy boundaries.

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#18

Post by rustyhancock »

I wish they called it confirmed and not discovered

It was known about by the locals, they even gave it a name, it's call was very well known even if few had sighted it.

They did important scientific work to confirm a distinct species. But they did not discover it unless you discount the local people!

Re: 'Likweli': A new monkey species discovered in the Congo Basin

#20

Post by markdown »

rustyhancock wrote: post #18

I wish they called it confirmed and not discovered It was known about by the locals, they even gave it a name, it's call was very well known even if few had sighted it. They did important scientific work to confirm a distinct species. But they did not discover it unless you discount the local people!

Incredible that that language is still used in 2026.

https://www.audubon.org/news/like-finding-unicorn-researcher...

This article about finding a bird presumed to be extinct for 140yrs is a good example of the local people knowing the bird was there all along, and guiding researchers with cameras to spots where they could find them.

BTW the youtube video on that page of the team in utter jubilation upon seeing the photos in their cameras never fails to make me smile.

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