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Haldane's rule

Haldane's rule proper noun: an observation about the early stage of speciation, stating that if in a species hybrid only one sex is inviable or sterile, that sex is more likely to be the heterogametic sex.

Proper noun

Haldane's rule

  1. An observation about the early stage of speciation, stating that if in a species hybrid only one sex is inviable or sterile, that sex is more likely to be the heterogametic sex.
    • One study hints at the possibility that Haldane's rule may have been the cause of the lack of Neanderthal DNA on the Y-chromosome of hybrids, but currently we do not definitively know.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 181

Origin of Haldane's rule

Formulated in 1922 by the British evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane.

Questions about Haldane's rule

What does Haldane's rule mean?
Haldane's rule means an observation about the early stage of speciation, stating that if in a species hybrid only one sex is inviable or sterile, that sex is more likely to be the heterogametic sex.
What part of speech is Haldane's rule?
Haldane's rule is a proper noun.

Words near Haldane's rule in the dictionary

  1. Haldane
  2. Haldane effect
  3. Haldane effects
  4. Haldane principle
  5. Haldane's law
  6. Haldane's rule
  7. Haldanes
  8. Haldanite
  9. Haldanites
  10. Haldeman
  11. Haldenwang

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Haldane's rule (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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