| Australopithecus Afarensis | |
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| Details | |
| Latin name: | Australopithecus Afarensis |
| Common name: | Lucy |
| Evolution leap: | Fourth |
| Time frame: | 3.9 - 2.5 million years ago |
| Previous leap: | Ardipithecus Ramidus |
| Next leap: | Australopithecus Africanus |
Australopithecus Afarensis are hominini.
Evolution Details[]
Australopithecus Afarensis is the Fourth Evolution Leap in the game. This evolution is played from approximately 3,900,000 years ago and will change to the next species after you reach approximately 2,500,000 years ago.
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Australopithecus Afarensis
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Trivia[]
Australopithecus afarensis is one of the longest-lived and best-known early human species; paleoanthropologists have uncovered remains from more than 300 individuals! Found between 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago in Pliocene Eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania), this species survived for more than 900,000 years, which is over four times as long as our own species has been around. The first fossils were discovered in the 1930s, but it is best known from the sites of Hadar, Ethiopia (‘Lucy’, AL 288-1 and the 'First Family', AL 333), unearthed in 1974; Dikika, Ethiopia (Dikika ‘child’ skeleton); and Laetoli (fossils of this species plus the oldest documented bipedal footprint trails), by an expedition led by Mary Leakey also in 1974. A. afarensis had many human-like and characteristics: members of this species had apelike facial proportions (a flat nose, a strongly projecting lower jaw), long and strong arms, and curved fingers adapted for climbing trees. They also had small canine teeth like all other early humans, and a body that stood on two legs and regularly walked upright. A. afarensis and other australopithecines were probably vulnerable to predation, their adaptations for living both in the trees and on the ground helped them survive for almost a million years as climate and environments changed.[1][2]
In 1978, the species was first described, but this was followed by arguments for splitting the wealth of specimens into different species given the wide range of variation which had been attributed to sexual dimorphism (normal differences between males and females). A. afarensis most likely descended from A. anamensis, and may have given rise to the genus Homo, though the latter hypothesis is not without dissent.
References[]
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