A cryptogenic species (" cryptogenic" being derived from Greek "

κρυπτός Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden'). The term is especially applied historically to Spani ...

", meaning hidden, and "

γένεσις The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( 'In the beginning'). Genesis purports to be an account of the creation of the world, ...

", meaning origin) is a species whose origins are unknown. The cryptogenic species can be an animal or plant, including other kingdoms or domains, such as fungi, algae, bacteria, or even viruses. In ecology, a cryptogenic species is one which may be either a

native species In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equi ...

or an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

, clear evidence for either origin being absent. An example is the

Northern Pacific seastar ''Asterias amurensis'', also known as the Northern Pacific seastar and Japanese common starfish, is a seastar found in shallow seas and estuary, estuaries, native to the coasts of northern China, Korea, far eastern Russia, Japan, Alaska, the Aleu ...

(''Asterias amurensis'') in

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

.NIMPIS Database
/ref> In palaeontology, a cryptogenic species is one which appears in the fossil record without clear affinities to an earlier species.

See also

References

Further reading