Breeds of human

[ll_billym]

How many different breeds of human are there?

In canines for instance there 300+ separate breeds from poodles to great danes.

Or does this not apply any more as we are all effectively mongrels?

Any other vaguely related information or thoughts on this is appreciated....

[Peter Pedant]

One, billy

The species is H sapiens sapiens and beneath the skin we are all the same.

One of the Sarth Efrican universities looked for a long time (100 yrs) at the differences between the Afrocaribbean and european and basically came up with diddlysquat

I think the seventh cervical vertebra is commonly bifid in one and not the other

Now looking at evolution is interesting as one species did not give rise to another but in fact it looks like two or three species coexisted.

such as Homo and Pithecanthropus

Pithecanthropus was described first by a famous anatomist Raymond Dark in 1928 - the Taung Child - and he was Raymondo and not the child - was South African, bringing a nice cyclical flavour to this posting

[Peter Pedant]

Oh and they went back to Dark and said it seems that H and P co-existed and he commented -

oh we concluded that back in the sixties but it seemed so unlikely that we didnt run with it....

[Peter Pedant]

... or it might have been australopithecus, anyway you get the idea....

[Peter Pedant]

oh god it is Raymond Dart - I'm going home

[gammaray]

There is only one breed - Earthlings! and we find you a most interesting species!

[ll_billym]

Well thanks for the answers, I must admit I thought that there would be separate breeds for each type of human, asian, african, etc.

[Peter Pedant]

no billy, say that in a pub and the landlord will ring the police and get you taken away.

it is ok on answerbank tho

[jimmer]

Yes and all of the dogs you mention have come about through selective and deliberate breeding either for commercial gain or utility and this, of course, is as a result of domestication.

Superficial differences in the appearance of humans through hereditry means is usually refered to as race or ethnic background. Under this definition it would be fair to say that there are countless distinct groups of humans, genetically speaking, and there is a massive amount of cross-over between racial groups which makes the whole business of counting them impossible. For example, certain inca communities have large chest cavities which are efficient at gathering and using oxygen; and many rural English communities have similar visual characteristics such as, say, a big nose.

jim