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Australopithecus (/ ˌ ɒ s t r ə l ə ˈ p ɪ θ ɪ k ə s,-l oʊ-/, OS-trə-lə-PITH-i-kəs, -loh-; [1] or (/ ɒ s ˌ t r ə l ə p ɪ ˈ θ iː k ə s /, os-TRA-lə-pi-THEE-kəs [2] from Latin australis 'southern' and Ancient Greek πίθηκος (pithekos) 'ape' [3]) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene.
Broom discovered fossils of Australopithecus that contributed to the acceptance of Dart's interpretation of the Taung child, as a transitional form between apes and anatomically modern humans. Dart's claim that Australopithecus africanus , the species name that he had given to the Taung Child, was a transitional form between apes and humans was ...
The encephalization quotient of some cetaceans is therefore higher than that of most primates, including the nearest relatives of humans, such as Australopithecus. [8] This list follows partly from Walter Carl Hartwig's 2002 book The Fossil Primate Record [9] and John G. Fleagle's 2013 book Primate Adaptation and Evolution (3rd edition). [10]
Homo (from Latin homō '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.
All old world monkeys and apes are trichromats, but new world monkeys are polymorphic trichromats, meaning that males and homozygous females are dichromats while heterozygous females are trichromats (with the exceptions of howler monkeys and night monkeys, who have more and less robust color vision respectively).
Order Primates was established by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, in the tenth edition of his book Systema Naturae, [12] for the genera Homo (humans), Simia (other apes and monkeys), Lemur (prosimians) and Vespertilio (bats). In the first edition of the same book (1735), he had used the name Anthropomorpha for Homo, Simia and Bradypus (sloths). [13]
Determining which species of australopithecine (if any) is ancestral to the genus Homo is a question that is a top priority for many paleoanthropologists, but one that will likely elude any conclusive answers for years to come. Nearly every possible species has been suggested as a likely candidate, but none are overwhelmingly convincing.
Before the discovery of Ardipithecus and other pre-Australopithecus hominins, it was assumed that the chimpanzee–human last common ancestor and preceding apes appeared much like modern-day chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas, which would have meant these three changed very little over millions of years.