Stephen Jay Gould Quote

If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences is a chimera. A new species does not evolve in the area of its ancestors; it does not arise from the slow transformation of all its forbears.


'Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism', in Thomas J. M. Schopf (ed.), Models in Paleobiology (1972)


If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences ...

If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences ...

If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences ...

If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences ...