What is "hybrid speciation"

n. (context biology English) The formation of a new species as the direct result of hybridization between members of two existing species.

Hybrid speciation is a form of speciation wherein hybridization between two different species leads to a new species, reproductively isolated from the parent species. From the 1940s, reproductive isolation between hybrids and their parents was thought to be particularly difficult to achieve and thus hybrid species were thought to be extremely rare. With DNA analysis becoming more accessible in the 1990s, hybrid speciation has been shown to be a fairly common phenomenon, particularly in plants.

In botanical nomenclature, a hybrid species is also called a nothospecies. Hybrid species are by their nature polyphyletic.