Re: Sauropodz r kewl WAS: silly conversation on 2012 US presidential race

[tyazbeck@comcast.net]

Speaking of human classification...why aren't there any subspecies used for 
man, the most widespread species of mammal on earth? Wouldn't it depend on 
whether Neanderthals were considered a seperate species? if not, I would think 
that Homo sapiens sapiens would be used for the 'caucasian' race, and seperate 
ones for Negroid, Mongoloid and Australoid. Alternately, (since Africa is more 
genetically diverse than the rest of the world, I think) one could have 
H.s.sapiens for all non-African humans, and several other subspecies for the 
African groups. And no, I am not a white supremacist or a racialist. I just 
don't understand why the  different human races we seem to always use are not 
used taxonomically.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>
To: "Dinosaur Mailing List" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 3:18:44 PM
Subject: Re: Sauropodz r kewl WAS: silly conversation on 2012 US presidential 
race

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 12:04 PM, David Marjanovic
<david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:
>
> All crocodylians were included in the species *Lacerta crocodilus*, hence
> its name, and all salamanders & newts were included in the species *Lacerta
> salamandra* till Linnaeus and his student Österdam described *Siren
> lacertina* in 1766.

Ah, right.

>>  Simia (no longer used as a genus)
>
> Do you happen to know why? It's a mystery to me -- *Simia* can't be a junior
> synonym of anything else!

There was debate as to what the type species would be. In the end, the
name was considered too ambiguous to be worth keeping. It was actively
suppressed by ICZN Opinion 114:
http://www.archive.org/stream/smithsonianmisce73smit#page/n261/mode/2up

Note that its original content is well-approximated by Simii,
sometimes considered a synonym of Anthropoidea. Those taxa include
humans, as Linnaeus privately thought appropriate for Simia.

-- 
T. Michael Keesey
http://tmkeesey.net/