Here we stumble again on the flawed definition of a species. It’s not black and white. Biology is a fuzzy mess with no clear borders, so am the fuzzy terms should be treated accordingly.

People love clear boundaries, but biology doesn’t work that way. Everything in biology is incredibly complex, so any rule of thumb comes with huge caveats. Fuzzy concepts like “species” or even “life” are useful—as long as you avoid the grey areas.

The moment you start exploring edge cases, all bets are off, and the warranty on all neat definitions expires. Nothing works neatly with edge cases, so those who wander into the grey area are on their own.