Until now, we only had fragments of these cousins. Now we have face. Studying our evolutionary development and our sister-species is one of my favorite aspects of archeology. We’re constantly developing new information.
Side note: look up the initial presentation of Homo naledi. The leading archeologist did a phenomenal talk a couple of years ago (I think in December). It was really an exciting presentation. But I’m also pretty nerdy.
The “species can’t interbreed” thing is pretty antiquated. Many heard it decades ago and have just been repeating it like a mantra, in spite of the fact that modern biology has shown countless exceptions to this. It is an integral part of the taxonomy we know currently. There are rarely clean, orthogonal lines in nature and speciation isn’t one of them.
I knew most people wouldn’t be ready for this…
I didn’t think you’d be lining up for days to tell me that you’re one of the people I was talking about …
I’m lined up? I’m one of what people? I’m just a person interested in modern evolutionary biology, that saw you were sharing some old misinformation about speciation.