Field Guide to Species

A year later, Mayr published a work that is still considered a bible for evolutionary biologists: Systematics and the Origin of Species. In the book, Mayr details the process behind speciation, arguing that new species arise when a few organisms become geographically isolated and, after many generations, change so much that they can no longer breed with the original group. In recent years, Mayr, a professor emeritus at Harvard University, has criticized a cottage industry of what he calls "armchair taxonomists"--scientists who attempt to classify species without studying them in the field.