Vulcan races

[Lighthawk]

I've been thinking about this for a bit, and to me, Tuvok being black makes no damn sense. As far as I can recall, he is the only black vulcan we've seen. Now the reason I say it makes no sense is because I can't figure why he should be black. Among humans, dark skin is the result of generations spent living in an areas of bright, direct sun, such as say a desert region. Vulcan is a desert planet, scorched by bright, direct sunlight. If vulcans are anything like humans, and given our two species ability to breed, there must be more than a little common ground, shouldn't the majority of vulcans in fact be black? Instead though, Vulcan seems populated by people so white they should have been burned a permanent lobster red by now. And if we flip things and go the "Well they're aliens, we can't apply human traits to them" then Tuvok still makes no sense to me. If vulcan skin does not darken as a defense mechanism against unhealthy amounts of sunshine, then where did this guy come from? He's not just a little black, he's a good dark black. What did his ancestors do that so differentiated their skin tone from the normal vulcan paleness?

[Deepcrush]

He may also have human blood in his back round or come from a less populated group of Vulcans. That are rarely seen of course due to their low numbers.

[Graham Kennedy]

For all that it is a "desert planet", Vulcan cannot have the same climate everywhere. It's a ball, the poles therefore MUST have much less sunlight on a given area and so be a lot cooler.

By the way, we have seen other black Vulcans; Sek from Repression, and Tuvok's wife.

[Nickswitz]

Wasn't the other Vulcan that we saw in VOY black?

[Captain Seafort]

No

[Mikey]

Planets are big, and Vulcan must have some climactic zones we haven't seen. Dark skin among Vulcans may be an evolutionary response to some other form of radiation than UV, and/or black Vulcans may come from an area with less Van Allen or ozone protection than the rest of the planet. If this is a small area, then naturally we'd see a relatively small number of black Vulcans.