So erm, two things about humans in Mario series...

[cheat-master30]

1. Are they exactly the same as real life humans? I remember the movie saying they were evolved dinosaurs or something like that in the backstory in reference to the Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants, but they could well be evolved from or somehow genetically related to Toads or another such species in the series.

2. Are they related to any other Mushroom World species? In the real world, humans do share a common ancestor with various other species of apes and such, but what of in the Mario series?

[Sarisa]

1. When I see humans in fiction, I assume they are identical until the creator explains how they aren't (e.g. uestî). I guess it comes down to whether or not you see the movie as canon or not; note that the movie also has Mario and Luigi as Brooklynites, which was later overwritten by SMW2 making them Mushroom Planet natives, so the canonicity of the movie's biology is doubtful even beyond the source being the movie.
Personally, I think they're intended to be identical except for magic and jumping ability.

2. If humans there are as identical to humans here as possible, that would make their closest relatives the Kongs. If they're not...the Toads are the most similar species in build, but the Japanese sources are unanimous in linking Toads to Goombas, never to humans, which suggests convergent evolution. There is an open niche for dinosaur-descended humanoids, but no reason other than the movie to place MK humans in it - this would make their closest relatives Rexes, Yoshis, or Kremlings.

[SMBBQ]

If humans are biologically related to Kongs, then what about other monkey-like species? Are Kongs and Humans related to Ukikkis? (I think that's spelled right)

[Sarisa]

Naturally Kongs and humans would be (equally) related to Ukikis, going with the "MK biology is just like RL biology except where it's obviously not" hypothesis.

Oddly enough, the presence of breasts is not useful for classification; female Kongs and female Kremlings (which, as crocodilians, are presumably closer to Yoshis than to Koopas) are both shown with breasts, as well as some female Beanish.

[Koopalmier]

The evolution on Mushroom Earth went strangely. Many species became part-mammal, part-something else. For instance, Toads are probably part-fungus, part-mammal while Kremlings must be part-repitilian, part-mammal. And Beanish people too.

My guess is that the ME doesn't actually have "real" humans. Mario and Luigi are looking like cartoon characters while Peach, Daisy and Rosalina look more like manga characters. Well, they ARE humans, but they evolved a bit more than us.

[Sarisa]

Applying any type of logic to MK biology usually results in a headache, honestly.

My operating principle is that some force (call it the force of cartoon logic) pushes any species of sufficient intelligence and sociability towards a humanoid form, no matter what its origins. We can see their origin in throwbacks/unevolved cousins. The common ancestor of Toads and Goombas probably looked like a Goomba, the common ancestor of all Koopas probably looked like a real-life turtle, and that leaves apes as the ancestors of Kongs and humans.

I've stated a few times elsewhere that I think the Beanish are a special case and I have no leads on where they could have come from. My guess is Mushroom People, but that's only based on modern local populations. Pianta are another candidate, since they can live at that latitude.

Now, this is pure speculation. If you think that massive cross-kingdom hybridization makes more sense, well, there's no evidence either way.

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On a related topic, what information do we have about human population distribution in the Mushroom World?

We know that humans are rare in the known northern temperate zone; there is a human royal class ruling over the various Toad-populated kingdoms, Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, E. Gadd, and some human golfers, but those are the only humans we see.

Kongs live in the tropics; do humans live far south of the Mushroom Kingdom?

[PDoogan]

I always saw it like this: There seems to be quite a few pipes that lead to the real world (including the one the bros. came through) So who is to say humans hadn't come from Earth before? If there's one thing people are good at doing, it's populating new territory. The Mushroom world would have been the perfect place for humans to set up a new civilization. That might even be how the Mushroom Kingdom got founded and why Peach (a human) is in charge instead of a toad.

[Sarisa]

I was thinking that Toads, with their predisposition to panicking in crisis, might have welcomed human rulers at first and ambitious humans kept themselves on top ever since.

Presumably there is a population of humans somewhere that can sustain itself, like the Mario family.

[EpicGyllynn]

I find it hard to believe that Evolution(at least Evolution as it regards to Darwin's theory on the Origin of Life) occured in the Mushroom Universe. As something I disregard in the Real World, I certainly can't acknoledge it in a Fantasy one... The Humans are probably similar in Biology to us, while Toads appear to be a Mammal-Fungis hybrid, as it is hinted that they reproduce like we do, but in SSBM they release Spores when hit. I suspect that these "Spores" are used as a defence mechanism(seeing as they are physically inferior to other species) designed to stun would-be predators long enough for them to retreat. Well, that's my 2 cents, anyway.

[Koopalmier]

Evolution occured in the Marioverse. If I remember well, it was officially stated that "Koopas evolved from turtles" or something.

I think the ancestor of Toads and Goombas was a creature that directly evolved from fungus, while Koopas are from turtles.

And, sarisa, don't forget the WarioWare series. The biggest human population is there.

[Sarisa]

Thank you for reminding me how behind I am in my technical reading. Do we have any leads on where Diamond City, Kitchen Island, and other Wario locations are in the MK?

[EpicGyllynn]

Uhhh... No. I've never heard that. Besides, Turtles don't exist in the MW, at least not like what we would call a Turtle. The closest thing they have to Turtles are Shell-creepers. Provide a source and I'll look into it, but until then, I'll stick to my theory.

[Sarisa]

Mario games conserve detail - they rarely show innocuous, unintelligent animals, or mushroom farms, or hardware shops, or Koopa Troop paperwork. They only show things relevant to the game.

[cheat-master30]

There are Mushroom Farms... Moo Moo Farm is one of them, complete with lots of cattle.

[Koopalmier]

Mmh... Strange, I remember reading they come from turtles recently. Maybe in a bio. I can't remember which though. Well, they keep being called turtles anyway. Or was that about Toads and mushrooms ? I'll check later, but I'm pretty sure evolution exists on the MW.
And turtles are in the MW. They are featured in WarioWare microgames - which were imaginated by the members of WarioWare - and in WarioWare Gamecube. They aren't found in the MK, that's all.

[Vent]

I maintain what I always have: If you're a human in the Mushroom world, you look cartoony and have superhuman abilities.

On the subject of species evolution: I always guessed they were either magically-created (which could apply to some of Bowser's minions) or were simply always there. Natural evolution rarely applies to settings which are governed by divine beings and fantasy logic. Maybe thousands of years ago a Luma ate a load of Star Bits and became Mario's planet, with the first of all its species materializing with it.

[EpicGyllynn]

But really only Mario, Luigi, Wario and (maybe)Waluigi seem to have abnormal powers. The rest(i.e.Peach, Daisy and the denizens of Diamond City) seem to be like normal humans.

[Koopalmier]

Peach has some magic (psychic ?) powers, and Daisy seems to have a control over flowers. Waluigi became like this by training hard, day and night, to eventually become better than Luigi (see his Mario Superstar Baseball bio). Mario, Luigi, Peach and Wario are Star Children. As for Daisy, I don't know, maybe that's some ancestral power that all her ancestors had ? But other humans in the series are perfectly normal, safe for the cartoony look (see the denizens of Diamond City and Twilight Town).

[Vent]

-Peach has healing powers and various other magical abilities.

-Daisy has those flower and crystal-related moves from the spin-offs, plus the ability to take out Bowser in one slap.

-The various Diamond City residents have various improbable abilities: Ashley is a sorceress, Dr. Crygor and Penny are genius scientists, Young Cricket and Master Mantis are wuxia-style martial artists, Kat and Ana are 5-year-old professional ninjas.

-The humans in the Mario sports spin-offs can use Power Shots in Mario Tennis: Power Tour. Said Power Shots resemble Psynergy from Camelot's other RPG series Golden Sun.

-All seven kings in SMB3 carry magic wands.

So yeah. "Normal humans" my behind.

[Koopalmier]

Being a ninja / scientist isn't really a special power. Jimmy T and Mona aren't really special either. If every human character in the series was like a IRL person, it'd be boring anyway. As for the kings owning magic wands, does it count as a special power, really ? I don't care about the RPG-Sports spin-offes though. I forgot those.