this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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I think they're actually closer to us Sapiens than Asian elephants are to African elephants or an Atlantic salmon vs a Pacific.
There were around 15 human species other than us.
Homo Neanderthalsis went extinct around 30,000 years ago, Homo Floresiensis went extinct 12,000 years ago, and Homo Sapiens are still kicking around (for now)
We're the last humans left.
I thought the definition of species is a group that cannot interbreed with another group? Do you mean sub-species perhaps?
That is the the definition of species as laid out by Ernst Mayr, and it does have merit. It is a good definition but it gets a bit murkier at times, for example when polar and grizzly bears have fertile offspring, despite the polar being U. maritimus and the brown bear being U. arctos, commonly defined as different species of bear. As such, modern homo sapiens sometimes carry genes from H. neanderthalensis, but they are described as a different species to sapiens.
One issue that arises is that not all offspring between napiens and neanderthalsis were fertile.. The definition comes into question when only half the offspring between 2 ""species"" are fertile, are they different species or not?
There are multiple different concepts for defining species. The long and short of it is that species are not a fact of nature but a useful construct for us to be able to describe it.
Some other factors that are used to distinguish species:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: