A paraspecies (a paraphyletic species) is a species, living or fossil, that gave rise to one or more daughter species without itself becoming extinct.^[1] Geographically widespread species that have given rise to one or more daughter species as peripheral isolates without themselves becoming extinct (i.e. through peripatric speciation) are examples of paraspecies.^[2]

Paraspecies are expected from evolutionary theory (Crisp and Chandler, 1996), and are empirical realities in many terrestrial and aquatic taxa.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Examples

• A well-documented example of a living mammal species that gave rise to another living species is the evolution of the polar bear from the brown bear.^[13][14]

• An example of a living reptile paraspecies is New Zealand's North Island tuatara Sphenodon punctatus, which gave rise to the Brothers Island tuatara Sphenodon guntheri.^[15] An example of a living bird paraspecies is Empidonax occidentalis, the Cordilleran flycatcher.^[16][17]

• An example of a living plant paraspecies is Pouteria cuspidata, the pouteria trees or eggfruits.^[18]

See also

• Cladogenesis
• Anagenesis, also known as "phyletic change", where no branching event occurred (or is known to have occurred)

Notes and references