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peteroh9 t1_jbj8j0b wrote

Reply to comment by mothmvn in Is there a fertile creature with an odd number of chromosomes? by TheBloxyBloxGuy

But if the number of chromosomes changes as species evolve, there would most likely be a point where an organism with one number of chromosomes is mating with one that has a different number of chromosomes.

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Techiedad91 t1_jbjcc69 wrote

Are you referring to Speciation?

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Nick-Uuu t1_jbjhj27 wrote

Speciation isn't one and done, it's a shift in the average of a whole population, so this would be part of it but definitely not the norm

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Rather_Dashing t1_jcymabj wrote

Yes, in fact there are plenty of species which have differing numbers of chromosomes within that species. All different chromosome numbers mean (if everything else is the same) is that there is slightly higher chance of genetic abnormalities and the offspring is slightly higher likelihood of being infertile.

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