I think we already know what would happen here, don’t we?
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Australopithecus
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22 Votes in Poll
New findings reveal the geological age, context, and anatomy of hominin fossils discovered at the Ledi-Geraru Research Project in Ethiopia. Although scientists have uncovered much of the story of human evolution, several key chapters are still missing.
One major gap lies between 2 and 3 million years ago, a period for which fossil evidence remains scarce. This absence is especially significant because it marks the era when the branch of the hominin family tree that includes modern humans, or Homo sapiens, first appears in the fossil record.
Today, Homo sapiens (commonly referred to by anthropologists as Homo) is the only surviving member of the hominin lineage. In earlier times, however, our ancestors shared the Earth with other related species, sometimes competing and coexisting with them. Recent research supported by the National Science Foundation and the Leakey Foundation, and published in Nature, helps close one of these evolutionary gaps by revealing two early hominin species that lived side by side.
At the Ledi-Geraru site in Ethiopia’s Afar Region, an international research team discovered hominin fossils dated between 2.6 and 3.0 million years old. Lucas Delezene, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, served as the study’s second author, contributing alongside more than 20 scientists from North America, Africa, and Europe...
An international team of researchers working at Ledi-Geraru in Ethiopia has uncovered fossils indicating that early Homo and a newly identified Australopithecus species coexisted between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago.
The discovery includes 13 Australopithecus teeth, distinct from the famous Australopithecus afarensis (“Lucy”), and confirms there is no evidence of Lucy’s kind after 2.95 million years ago.
Dating was made possible by analyzing volcanic ash layers containing feldspar crystals, bracketing the fossils in time. This finding reveals a more complex, “bushy tree” pattern of human evolution, where different hominin species overlapped in both time and place.
Two Hominin Species Together: Oldest known Homo fossils and a new Australopithecus species found at the same site.
Precise Dating from Volcanic Ash: Feldspar crystals in volcanic layers bracketed the fossils at 2.6–2.8 million years old. Complex Evolutionary Picture that Supports a “bushy tree” model of human evolution with overlapping species.
Arizona State University A team of international scientists has discovered new fossils at a field site in Africa that indicate Australopithecus, and the oldest specimens of Homo, coexisted at the same place in Africa at the same time — between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago.
The paleoanthropologists discovered a new species of Australopithecus that has never been found anywhere. The Ledi-Geraru Research Project is led by scientists at Arizona State University and the site has revealed the oldest member of the genus Homo and the earliest Oldowan stone tools on the planet....
(Edited by The dragnor)
Acinonyx pleistocaenicus (cheetah relative)
Mantellisaurus (big iguanodontian)
Stomatosuchus (huge Egyptian neosuchian)
Australopithicus (mmm... monke)
Arrhinoceratops (name gives the family away)
Amphidon (Morrison Formation mammal)
21 Votes in Poll
''' A fresh look at early members of our lineage suggests that males and females were not built alike. The size gap was wide, and it likely shaped daily life in ways we do not see in people today...
The conclusion comes from a new comparison of two classic Pliocene species that many readers know by name, but not by their striking differences! '''
[Dimorphism seen in fossils ]
''' The work centers on Australopithecus afarensis, known from eastern Africa between about 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago, and on Australopithecus africanus, known from South Africa between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago...
The South African record for A. africanus anchors the southern end of the comparison and spans a similarly broad window in deep time. The two species lived far apart, which helps test whether size differences track local environments or something deeper.
Lucy, the small-bodied A. afarensis skeleton cataloged as AL 288-1, has long shaped how people picture that species. She was a tiny adult, an outlier who needed to be placed within the full spread of body sizes now known. '''
[ ■ ] What the new comparisons show ::
Both Australopithecus species show strong dimorphism, with A. afarensis standing out as even more pronounced. Adam D. Gordon notes that the Lucy species was not defined by a few unusually large individuals but by a consistent gap between the sexes, visible in body mass, limb breadth, and leverage... ''
37 Votes in Poll
Paranthropus boisei (adult male)
Australopithecus afarensis (adult male)
11 Votes in Poll
So Australopithecus is currently a Paraphyletic grouping, and cladistically includes Homo along with a few other genera. Since taxonomic groups must remain monophyletic, what is most likely to happen to the genus? Will it be split into different genera to avoid the problem? Or will Homo, Australopithecus, and the related genera be merged to keep the genus from being monophyletic (Ex: Homo sapiens becomes Australopithecus sapiens, or Australopithecus becomes a junior synonym of Homo).
Its for my Walking with Cavemen 2. This is part of the second episode.
Episode 2 Savanna Dwellers
There is a quite in the group, could this be a form of mourning? Because at the side of a lake on of the members of the group lays dead face down in the mud. We will call this ape Lucy, her life may have not been anything special but the knowledge she will bring to science will be. In this program we will follow this ape in the last days of her life and see the difference and similarities you and me share with her.
We must travel back 3.2 million years ago to see Lucy and her kind. Who is her kind you ask? Well she belongs to a species known as Australopithecus Afarensis. She has evolved in an Africa very different from Ardi’s this Africa is mostly grassland but Lucy still does spend a fair amount of time in the trees. It is early morning in Ethiopia during the Pliocene-an epoch in earth’s history-and a group of Australopithecus have just begun to wake up, early morning is the time that their activity peaks, most of their day will be spent foraging for fruits and leaves, but today is not going to be a normal day. It is the beginning of the dry season, and approaching the group’s home turf is a migrating herd of Deinotherium. Over one hundred tons of Deinotherium could shake up the daily lives of the Australopithecus tribe. As the tribe of ape-men descends from the home tree there is a disrupting sound, a sound of the Deinotherium’s thundering steps. This is enough disruption the ape-men can take, they begin to display attempting to scare off the Deinotherium but it does nothing less than spooks the herd. The Deinotherium begin to stamped, this sends the Australopithes into confusion. The group runs in different directions, and the Deinotherium continue their rage in a cloud of dust and dirt. Once the cloud clears the Australopithecus regroup at the tree for now there are casualty’s but this not the last of the migration, there will be more of these elephantine creatures coming.
After this disruption the group returns to their daily lives, but what do they do in their daily lives? We will have to look at their lives very closely. These ape-men seem to be very similar to Ardi, but with some important differences, the Afarensis are slightly more adapted to walking upright, and walking upright has made Lucy and her kind more able to see predators, but it is also easier for predators to spot them as well. But today Afarensis doesn’t have to worry about predators; the home tree is flanked by mountains and rivers, making this prime territory. Many rival tribes have tried to take it, though they have never been successful.
But enough about the land it’s time to talk about Lucy. Lucy is a female Australopithecus who is in her late teens; she is just above one meter in height and around four stone in weight. She is important to us but she is also important to her small infant, born just a few days earlier.
26 Votes in Poll
31 Votes in Poll
We know humans evolved from Australopithecus, but according to modern taxonomy, life is classified based on its evolutionary relationships, and humans are more closely related to certain Australopithecus species than others, so how come humans aren’t Australopithecus themselves?
Back in the Devonian period I kicked this random rock, now the whole timeline is messed up and carnivorous proboscideans will wipe out the megafauna
Karakiller = Terror Bird
(Gastornis, Utahraptor considered)
South American Rattleback = Doedicurus
(Protoceratops, Polacanthus considered)
Babookari = Australopithecus
(Mesopithecus considered)
Deathgleaner = Pteranodon
(Rhamphorynchus, Ornithocheirus, Anurognathus considered)
Spink = Diictodon
North American Rattleback = Scutosaurus
(Protoceratops, Doedicurus, Polacanthus considered)
What are your thought? Which animals would have been better comparisons?
(Edited by Geckosaur)
File classification: Expedition Disaster
Time period when it happened: Miocene Epoch
Species Involved: Deinotherium and early hominids
Description: This trip was a disaster. First off the team ended up running straight into a herd of male deinotherium in musth. Luckily they got away before getting trampled to death. Then they ended up getting pelted with rocks by early hominids. But everyone ended up with broken bones from the rocks.
This is the in story reason dinopedia prehistoric park won't have a true second season for a while. With no team to get animals the story would not be right.
If you've seen a fossil or skeleton of a prehistoric animal at a museum, exhibition, etc on this list, mark the name off and see if you can get 5 in a row
THIS IS A WARNING TO ALL GUESTS AND RANGERS CURRENTLY INSIDE THE MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK. RECENTLY, WE HAVE RECEIVED WARNING ABOUT A LARGE UNIDENTIFIED BIPEDAL PRIMATE, SEEMINGLY AN APE OF SOME SORT, ROAMING AROUND THE WASHINGTON STATE. DUE TO IT'S BROWN FUR AND LARGE FOOTPRINTS, MATCHING UP TO THE DESCRIPTION OF BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS, IT HAS BEEN GIVEN THE NICKNAME; "BIGFOOT."
IT IS HIGHLY AGGRESIVE AND SEEMS TO ALMOST ALWAYS ATTACK HUMANS UPON BEING VIEWED. WE REQUEST ALL RANGERS AND STAFF OF MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK EVACUATE THE PARK IMMEDIATELY.
FOR SAFTEY REASONS, HERE IS A GUIDE TO KNOWING WHEN YOUR INSIDE BIGFOOT TERRITORY, WHAT TO DO IF YOU ENTER IT, AND WHAT TO DO IF IT SPOTS YOU:
TERRITORY SIGNS
A LACK OF LIVING WILDLIFE, AS BIGFOOT IS CARNIVOROUS
BROKEN TREES
FOUL ODORS
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ENTER IT:
COVER YOUR SMELL IF YOU CAN
WALK OUT FROM WHERE YOU CAME FROM SLOWLY
IF YOU HEAR MOVMENT STAND SILL AND LOOK DOWN SO YOU CAN'T SEE IT.
WHAT DO IF YOU SEE IT:
OUR ONLY INSTRUCTION IF YOU VIEW IT IS TO RUN TO THE CLOSEST, MOST SOLID UNLOCKED STRUCTURE NEAR YOU AND HIDE.
THAT IS ALL
...
ERROR
...
Transcript 3968, Reads as follows:
Hello, this is agent RF of the Central Intelligence Agency. Upon the sightings of "Bigfoot" we sent out a Special Ops crew to deal with the threat. Whilst they were unable to kill "Bigfoot", they still managed to get a DNA sample of the beast. It strangely contained unidentified Australopithecine DNA Aswell as well as unidentified Pongine DNA along with Chimpanzee DNA. RP staff were questioned, but they denied that they made it. P.P's owner, Jacob, was questioned about it and shockingly admitted he and the unidentified individual known as "Heart" made it. In his words, he said that he and heart made it in their college years to prove that they could actually create something. Whilst we can charge Jacob for illegal genetic experimentation, we will lay off the charges for now.
Sincerely, Agent RF.