> V. destructor was mistaken for V. jacobsoni, a morphologically similar species first described from A. cerana in Indonesia (Oudemans, 1904). It was not until 2000, following a comprehensive molecular and morphological studies of so-called V. jacobsoni mites on A. cerana throughout Asia, that it was recognized as a distinct species (Anderson and Trueman, 2000). In that particular study, 18 different mite haplotypes [mites with distinct mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences] were discovered, nine of which were members of V. jacobsoni, six of V. destructor, and the identities of three others were unresolved. -- Maria Navajas, Denis L. Anderson, Lilia I. de Guzman, Zachary Y. Huang, Jeremy Clement, Ting Zhou, Yves Le Conte. Apidologie 41 (2010) 181–193
Quotations on the species problem
"... I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and varieties" Darwin (1859)
"No term is more difficult to define than "species," and on no point are zoologists more divided than as to what should be understood by this word". Nicholson (1872)
"The concept of a species is a concession to our linguistic habits and neurological mechanisms" Haldane (1956)
"The species problem is the long-standing failure of biologists to agree on how we should identify species and how we should define the word 'species'." Hey (2001)
"First, the species problem is not primarily an empirical one, but it is rather fraught with philosophical questions that require - but cannot be settled by - empirical evidence." Pigliucci (2003)
"An important aspect of any species definition whether in neontology or palaeontology is that any statement that particular individuals (or fragmentary specimens) belong to a certain species is an hypothesis (not a fact)" Bonde, N. (1977)
I am sorry but the distinction between species is hardly ever obvious. For example, How many species of Apis are there? How do you tell them apart?
PLB
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