A paraspecies (a paraphyletic species) is a species, living or fossil, that gave rise to one or more daughter species without itself becoming extinct.[1] Geographically widespread species that have given rise to one or more daughter species as peripheral isolates without themselves becoming extinct (i.e. through peripatric speciation) are examples of paraspecies.[2]
Paraspecies are expected from evolutionary theory (Crisp and Chandler, 1996), and are empirical realities in many terrestrial and aquatic taxa.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]