Apart from our species, the gallery features eight other kinds of human: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis,
By the time Homo sapiens arrived on the scene some 300,000 years ago, we were the ninth Homo species, joining habilis, erectus, rudolfensis, heidelbergensis, floresiensis, neanderthalensis, naledi, and luzonensis.
Plants, Animals, Protists, Fungi, Archaebacteria, Eubacteria.
Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters adapted to Europe's cold steppes. The related Denisovans inhabited Asia, while the more primitive Homo erectus lived in Indonesia, and Homo rhodesiensis in central Africa.
The most recent fossil and archaeological evidence of Neanderthals is from about 40,000 years ago in Europe. After that point they appear to have gone physically extinct, although part of them lives on in the DNA of humans alive today.
With fewer Neanderthals breeding with each other and group sizes already small and scattered due to the environment, hybridisation outside of Neanderthal family groups could have helped push the species into decline.
Apart from our species, the gallery features eight other kinds of human: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo floresiensis (nicknamed 'the hobbit'), Homo neanderthalensis (the Neanderthals) and the recently discovered Homo naledi.
The only realistic scenario for the evolution of two species out of ours would probably be if we expanded beyond our home planet and then lost contact with the settlers. If both populations survived long enough – much more than 100,000 years – we might see divergence and maybe two species of humans.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has listed at least 21 human species that are recognized by most scientists.
All people living today belong to the species Homo sapiens.
Broadly speaking, evolution simply means the gradual change in the genetics of a population over time. From that standpoint, human beings are constantly evolving and will continue to do so long as we continue to successfully reproduce.
There is nothing new about humans and all other vertebrates having evolved from fish. The conventional understanding has been that certain fish shimmied landwards roughly 370 million years ago as primitive, lizard-like animals known as tetrapods.
The Neanderthal hyoid bone
Its similarity to those of modern humans was seen as evidence by some scientists that Neanderthals possessed a modern vocal tract and were therefore capable of fully modern speech.
Homo erectus characteristics
erectus is the oldest known species to have a human-like body, with relatively elongated legs and shorter arms in comparison to its torso.
According to Galen, the imbalance of pairs resulted in one of the four temperament categories (or personality types): sanguine (being optimistic and social), choleric (being short-tempered and irritable), melancholic (being analytical and quiet), and phlegmatic (being relaxed and peaceful).
The First Humans
One of the earliest known humans is Homo habilis, or “handy man,” who lived about 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago in Eastern and Southern Africa.
In the 8 million years or so since the earliest ancestors of humans diverged from the apes, at least a dozen humanlike species, called hominids, have lived on Earth.
neanderthalensis, the last human species to go extinct.
Fair skin, hair and eyes : Neanderthals are believed to have had blue or green eyes, as well as fair skin and light hair. Having spent 300,000 years in northern latitudes, five times longer than Homo sapiens, it is only natural that Neanderthals should have developed these adaptive traits first.
Neanderthals and humans were engaged in brutal guerrilla-style warfare across the globe for over 100,000 years, evidence shows. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were closely related, sister species who evolved from the same ancestor and co-existed for millennia.
The 'Big Five' mass extinctions
There have been five mass extinction events in Earth's history. At least, since 500 million years ago; we know very little about extinction events in the Precambrian and early Cambrian earlier which predates this.