Bobo Phenotype - Face Features & Origin

Average Face

Averaging the portraits behind Bobo leaves the features that repeat and erases the ones that do not. That is exactly how the Bobo composite below was built: individual photographs were aligned and statistically merged, exaggerating shared structure into a single reference face that no actual person looks like.

Composite source: Human Phenotypes — Bobo

Geographic Distribution

The reference center for Bobo sits near 11.2° N, 4.3° W in West Africa. Around that anchor, prevalence falls off gradually — the type is not confined to one valley or one modern border, and the historical map should be read as a gradient rather than a boundary.

Physical Characteristics

Dark brown, sometimes black skin, usually kinky hair.

• Tall, (hyper-)brachyskelic, mesomorph
• Mesocephalic, mildly hypsicranic
• (Hyper-)platyrrhine, relatively short nose that is lower in women
• The face is large with a large mouth and bulging lips
• Occiput and prognathy are usually pronounced
• Body hair extremely weak

Historical Background

Sudanid variety with shorter skulls than Sudanids proper, and several other unique features that set it apart from other neighbouring groups. Similar to the Casamance type, but taller and wider-faced. Found in its purest form in Bobo-Fing and Bobo-Dyula in the Upper Volta region of Burkina Faso and Mali, also in Dogon, Senufo, and Songhai. In low frequencies across West Africa e.g. in Casamance and Ashanti.

Research History & Naming

The passage below traces who first defined Bobo, which rival names competed with it, and how later authors consolidated or disputed the classification — the raw material of any serious phenotype reference.

Identified within the "atypical groups" of the Sudano-Guinean region by Pales and St-Péreuse (1953) as the "Bobo type". Also illustrated by Chabeuf (1959) , who studied relationships to types further East. Grotanelli (1967) described it as a mesocephalised Sudanid, Leschi (1958) found the same anthropometric combinations in Dogon.

Comparison With Nearby Phenotypes

The five phenotypes whose documented centers lie closest to Bobo, ranked by great-circle distance. They are the types players most often confuse with Bobo in the quiz, precisely because their distributions overlap.

Bobo in the Game

Bobo is one of the faces that can appear in Classic Daily and Challenge Mode. When it does, the winning pin lands near 11.2° N, 4.3° W in West Africa — and because the scoring decays with distance, recognizing the region matters more than pixel-perfect placement.

Bobo Phenotype FAQ

Where does the Bobo phenotype come from?

The reference coordinates for the Bobo phenotype sit near 11.2° N, 4.3° W, in West Africa. That point marks the center of the West Africa distribution documented roughly 1500 years ago — actual prevalence spread well beyond it, toward entries such as Sudanid (proper) 301 km away, and modern migration has blurred those boundaries further.

What does the Bobo phenotype look like?

In the historical literature, dark brown, sometimes black skin, usually kinky hair. For Bobo these are statistical tendencies across a population, not a checklist every individual matches.

Is the Bobo phenotype a race or a nationality?

No — and the Bobo naming history above shows why. Bobo was defined, renamed, and regrouped repeatedly by different researchers, which is the opposite of how a fixed racial category would behave. A phenotype is a recurring bundle of visible traits recorded across a population; the Bobo label says nothing about where any individual's ancestors were born.

How does Bobo appear in the game?

In Classic Daily and Challenge Mode, the Bobo composite face appears without a label. Your task is to drop a pin on the world map where you think that face is historically most common — the scoring uses the distance between your pin and the reference coordinates near 11.2° N, 4.3° W. The post-round review then shows the correct location, your distance error, and this Bobo entry.

References & Literature

The Bobo phenotype entry above is compiled from the 4 academic references. Readers are encouraged to consult the original Bobo sources for verification and deeper context.

• Pales, L. and T. de St-Péreuse. 1953. Raciologie comparative des populations de l'Afrique occidentale.Bull. et Mém. de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris X. 185-497.
• Chabeuf, M. 1959. Anthropologie physique du Moyen-Congo et du Gabon méridional. Bull- et Mém- de la Société d'anthr- de Paris. 10, 2, 97-185.
• Grottanelli, V. 1967. I popoli del Sudan occidentale. In: Biasutti, R. Le Razze e i Popoli della terra. 4th Ed. Vol 1-4. U.T.E.T., Torino.
• Leschi, J. 1958. Premières données craniométriques concernant des Noirs Dogon de la boucle du Niger. Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris 9. 160-168.

Related Phenotypes

Other human phenotypes whose documented centers lie in the same part of the map as Bobo.

• Sudanid (proper)

  West Africa · 301 km away

  Sudanid proper. Widespread savannah type named after the Sudan region of West Africa. Found in its purest form among Mossi, Lobi, Dagaaba, S...

• Guineo Camerunian

  West Africa · 381 km away

  West African type, the shorter-skulled counterpart of Guinesids. May constitute the transition to Congolesids. Common in forest regions of C...

• Sudano Guinesid

  West Africa · 497 km away

  Transitional type between Sudanid and Guinesid, common in West Africa. Although it is just a contact type, it is sometimes separated from th...

• Moorish

  North Africa · 1,139 km away

  Relatively recent contact type of the Western Sahara. Probably formed during Antiquity when aboriginal Berber populations mixed with older W...

• Senegalid

  West Africa · 1,160 km away

  Gracile Sudanid variety, named after the country of Senegal, where it is found in its purest form among Wolof, more mixed in Serer. Occasion...

Further Reading

Background articles from the blog that explain where the Bobo type fits, how these composites are built, and what a face can and cannot tell you.

• What Is My Ethnicity? Who Is Asking Changes the Answer

  What the phrase assumes is that ethnicity is one thing a person has. Four registers answer it instead: a census form, a family record, a...

• Ethnicity Quiz: Five Question Types Behind the Label

  A face quiz, a census form, a reaction-time experiment, a surname model and an ancestry report all answer to the same phrase.