Wow Charles... Are you saying they all look the same to you? Specist!

This isn't surprising at all. Many species that have been around for longer than our own (including each of those you mentioned) have more diversity as they aren't as close to an evolutionary bottleneck as we are.

To my recollection, all the human populations, except for a group in Western Africa, are derived from the same migratory group; thus we have very little real genetic differences.

Sad news for penguin medical geneticists.

@1 I heart thee.

Seeing as all human beings alive today can trace their ancestry back to a small handful of individuals in Africa ~60,000 years ago (a blink in evolutionary time), it makes perfect sense that our species would not have evolved much genetic diversity.

Since when are humans the masters of difference? Don't forget, chihuahuas and Great Danes are the same species.

What @3 said.

Actually, the greatest genetic diversity in the genome is found in Africans, not in other racial groupings.

What does this prove? That genetic diversity is not the most necessary ingredient for a species' sucess?

Love, for many reasons.

@2 and 6 That's what I was gonna say.

Also, the amount of melanin in the skin may make a striking difference in outward appearance, and culturally we make a big deal about it, but it is inconsequential on a genetic level.

We usually only get to see penguins hanging out on the ice. We don't get to follow them into the world where they are efficient mass-murderers of fish and squid. In the water they play a three dimensional team sport of death for food on a daily basis.

Lions would be boring if we never saw them hunt.

What happened to the picture?