Human Taxonomy

The human taxonomy is the classification and categorization of Homo sapiens. When we classify the human being, we analyze them to see the physical traits that make her/him unique. In doing so, we observe what humans have that other vertebrate animals do not. However, when we do this, we also see what he has in common with other living creatures of the animal kingdom. Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish biologist, was the first man who did a taxonomy in biology as he made a general classification of plants and animals, using Latin words to label them.

Below, you can see a diagram of the human being taxonomy. By using the Latin word "sapiens" to designate the species she/he belongs to, we are separating her/him as distinct and special, for this word means "wise", and this is what makes her/him unique. He is the only animal on planet Earth capable of reasoning, planning, and producing speech as a medium to express their thoughts.

As you can see, he belongs to the kingdom: Animalia, and to the grade metazoan, which means he is a multicellular living entity, with different tissues and specialized organs. We put him in the phylum Chordata and the subphylum Vertebrata, which means she is endowed with a spinal chord and a vertebral column respectively. He is also classified as belonging to the Mammalia class of animals, which means the female has special glands that secretes milk, which differentiates her from reptiles and birds, which do not have such glands as they lay eggs.

He belongs to the order Primate, which means he has a stereoscopic vision, with one eye beside the other, a face, and hands. When we say he belongs to the family of Hominidae, we mean he does not slouch as he stands and walks in an erect gait, with the foramen magnum located at the center of his skull. We differentiate him even further by asserting that he belongs to the genus Homo, which means he is endowed with a pair of skilled hands, with a strong thumb opposing the other four fingers; thus, he is able to make hunting tools out of stone, such as spearheads and hand axes, but he is also able to make fire. Finally, we categorize her/him as being completely distinct from the rest of animals by saying she is sapiens as species, which means she/he is "wise".

Thus, not only is Homo sapiens capable of making tools, fire and homes, but she is also able to express her thoughts through speech, with the female and the male constituting one solid whole and indivisible species as it takes the two of them to perpetuate the existence of Homo sapiens. A male infant needs her mother for survival, self-esteem, and self-awareness as unique upon this Earth. This is the main reason that in most cultures, the deity representing wisdom and life was always a female; in ancient Athens it was Athena; in ancient Rome, it was Minerva; in most pre-columbian cultures of America continent, it was also a goddess that represented wisdom, protection, and life, such as Pacha-Mama in Peru and Bolivia. Two men alone on Earth would become extinct!

Below, human taxonomy diagram