SapientRaccoon

SapientRaccoon t1_j9bx0uh wrote

Yes, behavioral as well as physical differences are grist for the selective mill. I think socio-sexual selection has been seriously downplayed and overlooked. If someone is acting weird, you might not want to breed with them. If the behaviou4 set cones with physiochemical cues, it makes avoidance that much easier.

If the minority nevertheless manages to thrive and populate just enough to prefer hanging and mating with each other, and stop mixing with the parent group, then you have a new race, which might become a new species one day if the two groups drift genetically far enough away from one another to have sterile babies.

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SapientRaccoon t1_itbmrgp wrote

As predators learn the difference between lookalike poisonous and non-poisonous races/species, the difference in the poisonous ones might become more pronounced (the less different ones being mistaken for harmless more often). See how the Samurai Crab came to be.

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