I've been reviewing some of the notes left behind on furre characters for New Gaea, and trying to put them together. Here's some of the terms used on New Gaea to discuss characters and species.

Furre is the preferred name for the group of humans who have animal transformations. All furres are genetically human with Adin ancestry sufficient to give them the ability to shapeshift, though most are not able to fully control this ability.

Native races or native species are the scientifically used terms to refer to genetically distinct species on New Gaea which appear to all originate from New Gaea. The list of Native races is: Humans (including all Adin), Elves (including Dwarves), Andurusians, Elnieon, Alamoreans, and Kath'yik. Of these, all except Human and Elf are also called "native furries" to distinguish that they are not, inherently, descended from humans.

Hybrid is the term used to refer to offspring of Humans or Elves with any of the native furry species, or between Andurusians and Elnieon, the only native furry species known to be able to interbreed. Humans are able to breed with all other species native to New Gaea, Elves are able to breed with Andurusians and Elnieon, and Andurusians are able to breed with Elnieon and Alamoreans. Hybrids typically inherit the species of their mother and other traits or abilities from their father. They can be scientifically identified with names such as Homo sapiens dryadalis, or a Half-elf with a human mother.

Sub-species are fully interfertile subsets of a species, such as Humans (Homo sapiens) and Adin (Homo medeis) or Elves (Figura dryadalis) and Dwarves (Figura saxum). When sub-species interbreed, the subspecies is denoted by names such as Homo sapiens medeis, a Human with Adin ancestry. When members of subspecies interbreed, the traits or abilities they gain may be diluted or amplified based upon the nature of random mutations, but they will never change their primary species. When subspecies are referenced, repeating the species name indicates that they are of the "standard" species.

Scientists currently estimate that some 50% of humans descended from Europeans (with smaller proportions among other populations) are not Homo sapiens sapiens, but Homo sapiens medeis, but that some indigenous people in the Americas may be more than 50% Homo sapiens medeis by population.

With all of this established, we can assume that all furres are members of Homo sapiens medeis, though the reverse is not true (statistically, about 1/3 of Adin-descended humans are furres). It is generally impossible to tell a member of H. sapiens medeis from a member of H. sapiens sapiens at the time of birth, without a thorough genetic profile, which has been available only since the early 21st century. Furres always experience their first transformation between the ages of 3 and 18 (inclusive), with the majority having their first transformation between the ages of 8 and 13 (inclusive). Meta Note: The numbers very closely approximate the curve generated by rolling three six-sided dice, or 3d6, so if you wanted to randomly decide when a furre character experienced their first transformation, you could use this technique to get a statistically-based age.

I hope to make another post soon covering the species and subspecies defined above, and another one covering some of the specific terms used for furres, but this does involve sorting through a lot of materials that aren't always the most organized. Have a good one, folks!