homo sapiens sapiens | mensch

999. HOMINIDAE: Hominini - Homo

Mensch | Mensch (A) - Human

ID: easily identifiable by the waste they leave behind; still some of the more stupid specimens might be mistaken for Apes (genus Pan, or even Gorilla in some cases); note: it isn't too bad to confuse Humans with Apes, but never make the mistake of mixing them up with Monkeys

Habitat: since their ancestors descended from the trees Humans have become a rather secretive species and prefer to live in houses; they even spend a great deal of effort (and money as they call it, some medium of exchange they value highly) to build them (or exchange them for money): it seems that their houses are a status symbol just like the horns of a bull or the comb of a cock, and to own a nice house definitely makes them sexually more attractive to the opposite sex
2007.08.01/b 48°06' N 16°51' E (male house-dweller in a Carnuntum villa 175 m, NÖ BL 2404 Petronell)

Habitus: they are bipeds who however are able to move in quadrupedal motion when required (also their young do before they learn to walk upright); a plump and usually quite ugly torso thus usually has four limbes attached to it, and on top of it a head which seems to be the centre of their intellectual activity (except when they're in the rut at which time lower body parts take over); here's a typical head, covered with a hat (Humans are eager to cover their bodies with synthethic materials):
2009.09.25/b 46°57' N 14°25' E (small town 634 m, K SV 9360 Friesach)
Humans are divided into several races, here's one of mixed race (African/European):
1990.02.25/b 48°33' N 13°46' E (Rastafarian, 510 m, OÖ RO 4144 Oberkappel)

Here you can see some mutantes who seem to have grown sticks from their hands which, for some reason, they don't want to have removed surgically even though Human culture would (or should) be capable to do away with them:
2009.09.13/b 48°11' N 16°29' E (bridge in Lobau 153 m, Wien 22)
Also there seems to exist a three-dimensional race of humans (two dimensions plus time) which strangely enough seems to thrive well in the four-dimensional space-time of our universe:
2009.09.22/b 48°11' N 16°29' E Homo sapiens f. planus (Lobau 154 m, Wien 22)

Way of Life: predators, scavengers and omnivores - they eat almost anything; in order to make their living transport is very important: they've built a world-wide infrastructure just for this purpose, here you can see one of them using a vehicle called bicycle:
2008.09.12/b 48°11' N 16°24' E (broad street as they call it, 165 m, Wien 3)
Here you see them fishing; they wait hours on end to catch just a few fish and even then they throw most of their catch back into the waters:
2008.10.09/b 48°09' N 16°29' E (bayou, 152 m, Wien 11)
And here some scavengers sharing their loot:
1994.08.26/b 48°17' N 14°17' E (city, 260 m, OÖ L 4020 Linz/D)
Strangely, this species has a habit of producing reproductions of their kind - be it with painting walls or paper, or of chiseling idols out of stones, or of forming some from snow:
2009.12.25/b 48°33' N 13°46' E (Mühlviertel, 710 m, OÖ 4141 Pfarrkirchen/M)
It is unknown why they do it; they call this "culture" but probably this is just an euphemism for vanity.

Reproduction: sexually, but little is known about reproduction rituals - not because they'd be so secretive about (which they aren't at all) but because it seems there is no clearly defined ritual as how they are supposed to approach the opposite sex; for once it isn't always necessary the male who is the active part nor is it the female but roles might change in an unpredictable way, so here we can only offer some observations:
2008.08.01/b 48°10' N 16°18' E (female making a trophy shot of a male - outside the picture - she seems to have taken recently, Schönbrunn park 235 m, Wien 13)

Strangely enough some Humans seem to be in the rut all around the year while others seemingly are not interested in sex at all for long periods of time; this surely should have some biological or social reasons but so far the mechanisms governing this behaviour haven't been discovered. Below you can see two shots of women considered to be sexually attractive, the first one being a photograph (with two fully dressed women), the second one a piece of art where secondary sexual organs are exposed in a way which may seem ugly to you but which is nothing out of the ordinary in Human culture (there exist taboos to expose primary sexual organs the same way but this still is done, if usually not as openly):
2008.11.23/b 48°14' N 16°24' E (exhibition, 165 m, Wien 22)
2008.08.01/b 48°13' N 16°21' E (street/bridge m, Wien 9)

Occurence: basically everywhere, but preferably in crowded places:
2010-11-21/f 48°11' N 16°20' E (Vienna XV. district, Giatl)

Peculiarities: some very strange habits of Homo sapiens are still unclear, like this one here for which so far no explanations have come forth:
2008.06.21/b 48°31' N 13°52' E (agglomeration of houses = a village at 603 m, OÖ RO 4134 Putzleinsdorf)

Links: -

hominidae: hominini - homo

>>> HOMINIDAE

familia Hominidae - tribus Hominini: Hominids, Human - Menschenaffen, der Mensch

See also English and German Wiki on human evolution.

- Sahelanthropus (genus): ~7 mio - 6 mio years ago; probably oldest Hominini genus (disputed)

| Sahelanthropus tchadensis: taxonomy still controversely discussed, Sahelanthropus is considered by some being "closer to Homo than Pan" but by others a predecessor of Pan or even Gorilla

-.- Orrorin (genus): +/- 6 mio years ago; certainly Hominini, probably the oldest one

| Orrorin tugenensis: only very few bones found and by some considered to be the direct ancestor of Homo (as the Orrorin femur = thigh bone is closer to Homo than that of Australopithecus): this genus definitely could already walk upright; if this could be proven Australopithecus should be considered only a sidebranch of the Hominini tree which has no direct descendants

-.-/- Ardipithecus (genus): ~5,8 mio - 4,4 mio years ago

| Ardipithecus kadabba: ~5,8 mio - 5,3 mio years ago; probably ancestor of A. ramidus (but still disputed)

| Ardipithecus ramidus: ~5,5 mio - 4,4 mio years ago; famous found of female skeleton Ardi: confirmed as being bipedal on open terrain while moving quadrupedal in trees

-.-/-/- Australopithecus (genus+): ~4,5 mio - 2 mio years ago; most likely candidate for ancestor of genus Homo except if Orrorin should take that place

| Australopithecus anamensis: ~4,5 mio - 4 mio years ago

| Australopithecus afarensis: ~4 mio - 3 mio years ago

| Australopithecus bahrelghazali: ~3,5 mio - 3 mio years ago

| Australopithecus africanus: ~3,3 mio - 2,5 mio years ago

| Australopithecus garhi: ~3,2 mio - 2 mio years ago

-.-/-/-.- Paranthropus (genus+): ~2,75 mio - 1,2 mio years ago; probably descendants of Australopithecus and most likely no ancestors of Homo

| Paranthropus aethiopicus: ~2,75 mio - 2,5 mio years ago

| Paranthropus boisei: ~2,6 mio - 1,5 mio years ago

| Paranthropus robustus: ~2 mio - 1,2 mio years ago

-.-/-/-/- Homo (genus): Human - Mensch

| Homo habilis: ~(2,5) 2,4 mio - 1,4 mio years ago (South and East Africa); first Homo genus, believed to be a descendant of Australopithecus (or Orrorin?): walks upright, smaller molars, larger brains, uses tools; unclear (probable) subgenus of H. rudolfensis and H. georgicus

|-| Homo ergaster: ~1,8 mio - 1,25 mio years ago (Africa, spreading to Europe and Asia): considered by some to be the earlier stages of Homo erectus, by some subsumed under the latter species or considered a subspecies Homo erectus ergaster

|-|- Homo erectus: ~(1,8) 1,25 mio - 70.000 years ago (originating in Africa and from 1,25 mio years onwards only present in Asia): a sidebranch of the Homo branch which finally became extinct without direct descendants

|-|-| Homo antecessor ~1,2 mio - 500.000 years ago (Spain, England); Homo cepranensis ~800.000 years old (Italy) (and probably Homo mauritanicus): considered intermediate stages between H. ergaster (erectus?) and H. rhodesiensis

|-|-|- Homo heidelbergensis ~800.000 - 300.000 years ago (proposed also as H. sapiens heidelbergensis and H. sapiens paleohungaricus): predecessor of H. neanderthalensis but very much transitional between the latter and H. erectus

|-|-|-.- Homo neanderthalensis ~400.000/250.000 - 30.000 years ago (also proposed as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: no significant gene flow between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens could be proven, therefore both are (still) considered different species whose common ancestors should have lived ~660.000 years ago; died out without any direct descendants (there are speculations of an unsignificant gene mix with later Homo sapiens in Western Europe)

|-|-|- Homo rhodesiensis ~300.000 - 125.000 years ago: believed to be a descendant of H. antecessor even though there's a gap of about 200.000 years between both; recently found Gawis cranium might possibly fill this gap (dated 500.000-250.000 years ago) but it still remains to be seen if this could be a missing link or if it is just a sidebranch without any descendants

|-|-|-| Homo sapiens (sapiens) ~250.000 years ago and waiting yet for becoming extinct: newest research has established that our ancestors were genetically extremely homogenuous and probably descendants of a very small (African) group (thus, Homo sapiens might have been on the verge of extinction then), probably only a few hundred, or a few thousand; there is a possibility that some cataclysmic event (probably a volcanic eruption like the one of Toba ~75.000 - 70.000 years ago) almost led to the extinction of the genus and that only a small group survived, and populated the world afterwards; Homo sapiens lived alongside other hominid species, noticeably Homo neanderthalensis, for a significant period of time so that it is very much possible that some gene mixing occured

|-|-|-|x Homo sapiens x neanderthalensis: as said above, there is much speculation about cross-breeding between those species, especially in Europe where they lived alongside for millenia; there is little genetic evidence for this but intellectual analysis of some very thick guys (to name but a few: HC, GWB, and others) indicate that Homo sapiens couldn't possibly have reached its peak with brains like that, thus most likely at least some genes of H. neanderthalensis should have transferred to Homo sapiens

hominidae

>>> PRIMATES

familia Hominidae: Great Apes/Hominids - Menschenaffen (incl. Mensch)

In older taxonomies Gibbons sometimes are subsumed under Hominidae but they are considered a genus outside of this family in modern theories.

- Pongo (genus): Orang-Utan

| Pongo pygmaeus: Bormeo-Orang-Utan (2-3 subspecies)

| Pongo abelii: Sumatra-Orang-Utan

-/- Homininae (tribus): African Apes - Afrikanische Menschenaffen

-/-.- Gorilla (genus): Gorilla

| Gorilla gorilla: Western Gorilla - Westlicher Gorilla (W. Flachland-G., Cross-River-G.)

| Gorilla beringei: Eastern Gorilla - Östlicher Gorilla (Ö. Flachland-G., Berg-G.)

-/-.-/- unnamed tribus of Pan and Homo

-/-.-/-.- Pan (genus; also belonging to tribus Hominini): Chimpanzee - Schimpanse

| Pan troglodytes: Common Chimpanzee - Gewöhnlicher Schimpanse (4 subspecies)

| Pan paniscus: Bonobo - Zwergschimpanse

-/-.-/-.- Hominini - Homo (tribus and genus; without Pan of same tribus): Human - Mensch