When you think of facial hair you don’t automatically think of a taxonomy, or at least I don’t. This interesting and slightly humorous topic came to us from Wired in their article, “Facial Hair Is Biologically Useless. So Why Do Humans Have It?“
Human traits can be categorized and classified just like any other topic. Think about it like part of a custom Linnaean taxonomy where facial hair is a family, beards and mustaches are each a genus, and their many varieties are individual species that could interbreed.
Maybe that is a reach.
Beards or facial hair in general, have always been more of a trend or personal preference than a functional aspect of personal grooming. This purely ornamental feature of a person’s character went under the magnifying glass when the COVID-19 pandemic began. There was much discussion about the potential transmission of the virus through excess facial hair and the feasibility and effectiveness of facial masks when your mouth and chin is covered in hair.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
