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However, such divergence in chewing adaptations may instead have been a response to fallback food availability. In leaner times, robust and gracile australopithecines may have turned to different low-quality foods (fibrous plants for the former, and hard food for the latter), but in more bountiful times, they had more variable and overlapping ...
The terms australopithecines, et. al., come from a former classification as members of a distinct subfamily, the Australopithecinae. [6] Members of Australopithecus are sometimes referred to as the "gracile australopithecines", while Paranthropus are called the "robust australopithecines". [11] [12]
However, the validity of Paranthropus is contested, and it is sometimes considered to be synonymous with Australopithecus. They are also referred to as the robust australopithecines. They lived between approximately 2.9 and 1.2 million years ago (mya) from the end of the Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene.
However, it has been argued by some that Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus robustus. Robust australopithecines—as opposed to gracile australopithecines—are characterised by heavily built skulls capable of producing high stresses and bite ...
Gracile australopithecines (Australopithecus afarensis) emerged in the same region, around 4 million years ago. The earliest known retouched tools were found in Lomekwi, Kenya, and date back to 3.3 Ma, in the late Pliocene.
Along with similarities to contemporary Homo, they share several characteristics with the ancestral Australopithecus as well as early Homo (mosaic evolution), most notably a small cranial capacity of 465–610 cm 3 (28.4–37.2 cu in), compared with 1,270–1,330 cm 3 (78–81 cu in) in modern humans.
Homo (from Latin homÅ 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses only a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.
Paranthropus aethiopicus is an extinct species of robust australopithecine from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of East Africa about 2.7–2.3 million years ago. However, it is much debated whether or not Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and is synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus aethiopicus. [1]