Scientists at the University of Arizona may have witnessed the birth of a new species for the first time.

Biologists Laura Reed and Prof Therese Markow made the discovery by observing breeding patterns of fruit flies that live on rotting cacti in deserts. The work could help scientists identify the genetic changes that lead one species to evolve into two species.

Whether the two closely related fruit fly populations the scientists studied - Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae - represent one species or two is still debated by biologists. However, the University of Arizona researchers believe the insects are in the early stages of diverging into separate species.

The emergence of a new species - speciation - occurs when distinct populations of a species stop reproducing with one another.

When the two groups can no longer interbreed, they cease exchanging genes and eventually go their own evolutionary ways becoming separate species.

Though speciation is a crucial element of understanding how evolution works, biologists have not been able to discover the factors that initiate the process.

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