Homo mermanus

Homo mermanus is a fictional race of gilled aquatic humanoids appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. This race is best known as the inhabitants of Atlantis in the Marvel Universe. Namor the Sub-Mariner is the most notable character and leader of the race. Bill Everett often called them submariners and Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, but Stan Lee began to call everyone Atlanteans and the undersea kingdom Atlantis. An offshoot of the Homo sapiens species with an as-yet undisclosed origin, Homo mermanus is a mammalian species but with some fish-like characteristics. Each one possesses two twin gills located on their necks near the clavicle bone, which allow them to breathe underwater. Their skin pigmentation can be either blue (for most Atlanteans) or green (for most Lemurians and nomads). Their physiology is also much stronger and more durable than that of the Homo sapiens, created by their evolution under extreme water pressure of over 101 atm over countless years. As a consequence, they are physically much stronger than regular humans and can swim up to 30 miles (48 km) per hour (about 16x faster than the average Homo sapiens). The typical lifespan for a Homo mermanus is 150 years. However, they cannot survive outside of water for longer than five minutes without aid due to their species staying in deep water with no human contact. Atlanteans first appeared in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (April 1939). Homo mermanus are often referred to as Atlanteans because it was in the city of Atlantis that their first complex society emerged. Like humans, they learned to domesticate animals, such as dolphins. Atlantis itself had been a small above ground continent with many human settlements, when an event 10,000 years ago called the "Great Cataclysm" caused it to be submerged into the sea. 2,000 years later, a group of Homo mermanus made the ruins of the human settlements in Atlantis their home and went on to develop a society there, using as much of the material as they could scavenge from the wreckage.