Palaeontology

Ancient hominin skeleton discovered

By T.K. Randall
December 11, 2013

Image: Paranthropus Boisei - Forensic Facial Reconstruction
Credit: Cicero Moraes / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Discovered at the Olduvai Gorge site in Tanzania, the partial skeleton consists of arm, leg, hand and foot fragments. Paranthropus boisei is believed to have evolved around 2.3 million years ago and this find is likely one of the last members of its species to have lived prior to its extinction.

"We are starting to understand the physiology of these individuals of this particular species and how it actually adapted to the kind of habitat it lived in," said anthropologist Dr Charles Musiba."We knew about the kind of food it ate – it was omnivorous, leaning more toward plant material – but now we know more: how it walked around and now we know it was a tree climber."

Paranthropus boisei was first discovered in 1959 but despite a number of discoveries, it has taken until now to fill in the gaps due to the difficulties in finding a complete specimen.

Source: Sci-News

Tags: Hominim, Paranthropus boisei