chronospecies

The different species and their intermediate forms can therefore be termed "chronospecies".

Only one species-Ailuropoda melanoleuca-currently exists; the other four species are prehistoric chronospecies.

Current opinions are mixed regarding the classification of the form as a chronospecies or a separate species Gymnogyps amplus.

It has been described as a "probable chronospecies" (i.e. ancestor) of A. ramidus.

Due to this, and to their gross overall similarity, he suggested that they probably represent chronospecies within a single evolutionary lineage lasting about 4 million years.

Well documented from fossil bones, the genus Coragyps gives a rare glimpse in the evolutionary dynamics of two chronospecies.

Coragyps (chronospecies)

The further identification of fossil specimens as part of a "chronospecies" relies on additional similarities which more strongly indicate a specific relationship with a known species.

Present-day Valdiviathyris are all but inseparable from those of the Late Eocene and the genus cannot even be divided into chronospecies.

This fossil was initially placed in a distinct genus, Palnumenius, but was actually a chronospecies or paleosubspecies related to the Long-billed Curlew.

A chronospecies is a group of one or more species derived from a sequential development pattern which involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale.

The mitochondrial clade which Mitochondrial Eve defines is the species Homo sapiens sapiens itself, or at least the current population or "chronospecies" as it exists today.

Homo ergaster (also "African Homo erectus") is an extinct chronospecies of Homo that lived in eastern and southern Africa during the early Pleistocene, between 1.8 million and 1.3 million years ago.

For example, relatively recent specimens - hundreds of thousands to a few million years old - with consistent variations (e.g. always smaller but with the same proportions) as a living species might represent the final step in a chronospecies.

The concept of chronospecies is related to the phyletic gradualism model of evolution, and also relies on an extensive fossil record, since morphological changes accumulate over time and two very different organisms could be connected by a series of intermediaries.

Shark researcher David Ward elaborated on the evolution of Carcharocles by implying that this lineage, stretching from the Paleocene to the Pliocene, is of a single giant shark which gradually changed through time, suggesting a case of chronospecies.