The vernacular usage of mankind refers to the self described species, which is homo sapiens. The mistitled Telegraph article is talking about the species that w

The vernacular usage of mankind refers to the self described species, which is homo sapiens. The mistitled Telegraph article is talking about the species that was "a member of the tribe of hominins and the direct ancestor of homo." Literally not even in our own genus, but an ancestor of it. I do, though, understand how easy it is to confuse all the various terms; our brains unfortunately aren't optimized for the type of rigor demanded of science.