Common name

In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, trivial name, trivial epithet, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; this kind of name is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism, which is Latinized. A so-called "common name" is sometimes frequently used, but that is by no means always the case.

Sometimes common names are created by authorities on one particular subject, in an attempt to make it possible for members of the general public (including such interested parties as fishermen, farmers, etc.) to be able to refer to one particular species of organism without needing to be able to memorise or pronounce the Latinized scientific name. Creating an "official" list of common names can also be an attempt to standardize the use of common names, which can sometimes vary a great deal between one part of a country and another, as well as between one country and another country, even where the same language is spoken in both places.

Homo sapiens

Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise person") is the binomial nomenclature (also known as the scientific name) for the only extant human species. Homo is the human genus, which also includes Neanderthals and many other extinct species of hominid; H. sapiens is the only surviving species of the genus Homo. Modern humans are the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, which differentiates them from what has been argued to be their direct ancestor, Homo sapiens idaltu. The ingenuity and adaptability of Homo sapiens has led to its becoming, arguably, the most influential species on the planet; it is currently deemed of least concern on the Red List of endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Name and taxonomy

The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus (1758). The Latin noun homō (genitive hominis) means "man, human being".

Subspecies of H. sapiens include Homo sapiens idaltu and the only extant subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens. Some sources show Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) as a subspecies (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis). Similarly, the discovered specimens of the Homo rhodesiensis species have been classified by some as a subspecies (Homo sapiens rhodesiensis), but these last two subspecies classifications are not widely accepted by scientists.

Anatomically modern human

The term anatomically modern humans (AMH) or anatomically modern Homo sapiens (AMHS) refers in paleoanthropology to individual members of the species Homo sapiens with an appearance consistent with the range of phenotypes in modern humans.

Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic humans in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago. The emergence of anatomically modern human marks the dawn of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, i.e. the subspecies of Homo sapiens that includes all modern humans. The oldest fossil remains of anatomically modern humans are the Omo remains found in modern-day East Africa, which date to 195,000 (±5,000) years ago and include two partial skulls as well as arm, leg, foot and pelvis bones.

Other fossils include the proposed Homo sapiens idaltu from Herto in Ethiopia that are almost 160,000 years old and remains from Skhul in Southwestern Asia that are 90,000 years old. The oldest human remains from which an entire genome has been extracted belongs to a man who lived about 45,000 years ago in Western Siberia.