Are there any real examples of speciation?

One of the problems of studying speciation is that if you find two species, they are already isolated from one another - the question is how long have they been separated and what you are really asking is whether any observed speciation events are recent. Also it is a continuous process.

There are lots of examples of speciation processes in action. If you look at Drosophila melanogaster in the wild, then you find a pattern of isolation of populations from one another induced by patterns of mating incompatibility between males and females, which over time will become fixed reproductive isolation and so several new species will be born.

Also among mosquitoes of the Culex pipiens complex, where populations of what was once probably a single species are now diverging from one another in different parts of the world, i.e. speciating. In Europe and Asia it has diverged into Culex pipiens in temperate areas and Culex quinquefasciatus in subtropical areas (the latter is also found in the US) each has different biting preferences and slightly different ecology - as they look identical apart from slight differences in the male genitalia, we know this is a fairly recent event. In this group, the divergence of the populations in the London Underground (and elsewhere) from the surface dwelling population is well known. Since the Underground has only existed since the 19th Century the population is no older than that. This population is also a nice demonstration of natural selection, as one of the alleles from the original study is fixed in this population and almost absent in the surface population and is involved in the changes that relate to isolation and speciation. Furthermore, as this releases the females from the requirement to have a blood meal to lay eggs it is an example of a shift away from the traditional mosquito lifestyle.

There are also lots of interesting examples of cryptic species - where there are reproductively isolated populations that look identical and which are believed to be recent without the time to build up mutations leading to morphological divergence, pipistrelle bats is one duikers - species of African forest dwelling antelope is another.

A search on Google scholar will lead you to original papers and reviews on these topics and species - please be kind to the people who have put so much time into producing this data by reading their papers rather than getting an altered view from a Creationist web site.

Example Of Speciation

New species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model. But this speciation is within the ‘kind’, and involves no new genetic information.

Not long ago, evolutionists were astonished to find that bird-biting mosquitoes, which moved into the London Underground train network (and are now biting humans and rats instead), have already become a separate species. And now a study of house mice in Madeira (thought to have been introduced to the island following 15th century Portuguese settlement) has found that ‘several reproductively isolated chromosomal races’ (in effect, new ‘species’) have appeared in less than 500 years.

And several others in link below.

The most interesting case of speciation was actually documented by the great Charles Darwin himself while writing his book on the theory of natural selection. While at the Galapagos Islands, he took interest in a species of bird type called the Galapagos Finches. They showed remarkable evidence for speciation, and also natural selection. This is a modern example, have a look:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/1002...

This is what Darwin observed: http://chuck.severnchristian.org/images/Darwin's_F...

Let me think about that while walking my mini-Dachshund and munching on corn chips.