Ambystoma - Tumblr Posts
So I just discovered that there's a kind of salamander that takes entire genomes from males of different species and mixes them up however it pleases. I can't even say it's a "species" because a single individual can have the entire genomes from four different species knocking around in it, so scientists just refer to the "unisexual" members of the genus (because they're all female).
We don't even know what salamander they're originally descended from, because at some point they threw that genome out. Only the mitochondrial DNA are the same in this fucking ship of Theseus of an amphibian. Please keep in mind that it's commonly accepted that the whole purpose of an organism is to propagate its DNA. This salamander said NOPE.
This doesn't make sense. This isn't how species is supposed to work for any organism, let alone an animal. What even is this salamander????