Sentences with word «africanus»

But the identity of the first toolmaker has been mysterious, because more than one type of hominin was alive 2 million to 3 million years ago: our genus Homo, plus several species of Australopithecus, including A. africanus from South Africa and A. afarensis — the species of the famous skeleton of Lucy, who lived near Gona.

While most paleontologists agree that the discoveries of Homo erectus in 1891 and Australopithecus africanus in 1924 answered Crawfurd's charge, his use of the phrase to describe a common undiscovered ancestor of human and nonhuman primates captured the popular imagination and still hasn't let go.

With this knowledge the scientists turned to newly discovered specimens of Eunotosaurus africanus, a South African species 40 million years older than O. semitestacea that also had distinctively broadened ribs.

Satiated white - backed vultures, Gyps africanus, stand around a warthog carcass after much of the meat has been removed from the abdomen.

Finally, they looked at metacarpals from four Australopithecus africanus individuals, up to 3 million years old.

These observations support studies of the postcranial fossil record which have concluded that H. erectus was an obligatory biped, whereas A. africanus showed a locomotor repertoire comprising facultative bipedalism as well as arboreal climbing.

Its deposits include an Australopithecus africanus skull found in 1947 that came to be known as Ms. Ples, and, more recently, the most complete early Australopithecus ever found, called Little Foot.

The house - cat - size Pegomastax africanus, which lived 200 million years ago, had quills and a fanged beak.

The skeleton of the South African reptile Eunotosaurus africanus fills a gap in the early evolution of turtles and their enigmatic shell.

A team of researchers including paleontologist Torsten Scheyer from the University of Zurich can now reveal that the turtle's ancestor Eunotosaurus africanus already breathed with the aid of such a sling — even though it did not yet have a solid shell.

Two warthogs, Phacochoerus africanus, are pushed by a helicopter toward a transport truck through a huge fabric funnel, as workers close curtains behind them so they can't escape.

In a paper describing the fossil remains in the April 9 Science, Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and his colleagues suggest that A. africanus gave rise to A. sediba, which in turn gave rise to Homo.

A. afarensis and A. africanus displayed pelvic arrangements for upright walking, but not for Ardi's apelike climbing power.

«A. afarensis and A. africanus walked much like we do, and for the most part that goes for Ardi as well,» Lovejoy says.

In this habitat lived a lightly built or «gracile» australopithecine called Australo - pithecus africanus.

Aedes africanus, Aedes furcifer and Aedes luteocephalus species were the most infected vectors with 16 % positive (5/31 strains) each.

An example of a human precision grip, grasping an Australopithecus africanus thumb bone dating to 3.2 million years ago.

This skull has far too many australopithecine features to be anything else than a large - brained africanus.

A. africanus lived in southern Africa about 3.3 million years ago.

If you invite sediba into the human family, then what's to stop africanus and Lucy joining as well?

Biologist Teague Scott from the Intermountain Bird Observatory carries a recently captured young white - backed vulture, Gyps africanus, back to the measuring station.

The Copeland team analyzed the teeth of 19 hominins: eleven Paranthropus robustus individuals from Swartkrans, fating to 1.8 million years ago and eight Australopithecus africanus individuals, 2.2 ma from nearby Sterkfontein.

New research suggests pre-Homo human ancestral species, such as Australopithecus africanus, used human - like hand postures much earlier than was previously thought.

An international team of researchers from North American, African and European institutes and museums have now discovered the origin of this muscle sling: in Eunotosaurus africanus, a fossil reptile which lived in South Africa during the Middle Permian around 260 million years ago, as the study just published in Nature Communications reveals.

He suspects that the lack of stone tools in the archaeological record prior to 2.5 million years ago suggests that the tools were not as adaptively important to A. africanus as they were to later humans.

There were two species of Australopithecus living in late Pliocene and early Pleistocene periods — A. africanus and A. robustus.

The A. africanus was apparently our ancestor; it did evolve the biologically unique human qualities, and its descendants gradually became human.

The endocasts were made from A. africanus and A. sediba fossils dating to between roughly 2 million to 3 million years ago (SN: 8/10/13, p. 26).

At the time, Falk argued that four endocasts from southern African hominids — three Australopithecus africanus and one Australopithecus sediba — showed folding patterns that suggested that brain reorganization was underway as early as 3 million years ago in a frontal area involved in human speech production.

He called the skull Australopithecus africanus and argued that it showed we evolved in Africa.

But a series of papers published in early 2015 have solidified an emerging paradigm shift in paleoanthropology — Australopithecus africanus and other Pleistocene hominins, traditionally considered not to have made stone tools, have a human - like trabecular bone pattern in their hand bones consistent with stone tool knapping and use.

When paleoanthropologist Lee Berger unearthed a fossil near Johannesburg, South Africa, it seemed to be a jumble of parts: a braincase similar in size to that of an Australopithecus africanus, a Homo erectus pelvis, and the arms of a Miocene ape.

In this inherited malady, the brain is typically just 400 cc — roughly the same size as that of the early hominid Australopithecus africanus, of which «Lucy» is the best - known specimen.

But the study does suggest that 3 million years ago — 400,000 years before the oldest known Oldowan hand axes — A. africanus was already starting to use its hands differently to its ancestors.

John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin - Madison says the similarities between A. africanus and human bones are relatively convincing.

It's possible A. africanus were using other types of tools, like bones or pieces of wood.

This is a living South African sideneck turtle (Pelusios niger) next to its 260 - million - year - old relative, Eunotosaurus africanus.

By studying the anatomy and thin sections (also known as histology), Lyson and his colleagues have shown that the modern tortoise breathing apparatus was already in place in the earliest fossil tortoise, an animal known as Eunotosaurus africanus.

Over the past two years, the team has tagged 16 birds — seven white - backed vultures, Gyps africanus, and nine white - headed vultures, both of which are critically endangered species.

One display case contains the casts of an array of hominid skulls: the robust, massive - jawed 1.6 - million - year - old Paranthropus robustus from Swartkrans, South Africa; the flat - faced 1.7 - million - year - old Paranthropus boisei from East Turkana, Kenya; the tiny skull and fossilized brain of the 2.5 - million - year - old Taung child, or Australopithecus africanus, found at Sterkfontein, South Africa.

A marabou stork, Leptoptilos crumenifer, looks for its next bite as it stands near a white - backed vulture, Gyps africanus, feeding on a waterbuck carcass, Kobus ellipsiprymnus.

Most experts agree that our genus evolved from a species of Australopithecus — either A. afarensis (Lucy's species) or A. africanus.

Features such as small brain size, slight build and very long arms link the creature to the australopithecines, especially A. africanus.

They detected these same modifications in a skeleton of A. africanus, another australopithecine that roamed South Africa between 2 million and 3 million years ago.

Two South African hominids from between roughly 1 million and 3 million years ago, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, show lower rates of tooth chipping than H. naledi, at about 21 percent and 13 percent, respectively, the investigators find.

They used those findings to examine fossil pelvises of Ardi, Lucy and a 2.5 - million - year - old Australopithecus africanus.

Clarke argues that Little Foot, which he classifies as Australopithecus prometheus, represents a more primitive, separate species from A. africanus.

Until Little Foot was found, the earliest hominin species known in South Africa was Australopithecus africanus, which is generally believed to have lived between 2 million and 3 million years ago.