Ardipithecus revealed
In tomorrow’s issue of Science, scientists will present a full analysis of a fossil skeleton of a very early hominid species. The skeleton belonged to a female of the species Ardipithecus ramidus (her friends apparently call her Ardi). The species lived roughly between 4 and 1 million years ago, and this particular female lived 4.4 million years ago. For context, the famous Australopithecus afarensis fossil Lucy lived about 3.2 million years ago. Ardipithecus represents the early stages of hominid evolution after divergence from the chimpanzees, and the skeleton shows some interesting and surprising anatomical features. For example, she walked upright, but on feet that did not show our characteristic arch; she had huge hands, long arms, and short legs.
Plenty more information is available:
- New York Times article
- Science Daily article
- Image gallery from New Scientist
- Article from Carl Zimmer’s blog, The Loom
And of course you can go out and pick up a copy of Science for the whole story.
