Australopithecus (/ˌɒstrələˈpɪθɪkəs,-loʊ-/, OS-trə-lə-PITH-i-kəs, -loh-;[1] from Latin australis 'southern', and Ancient Greek πίθηκος (pithekos) 'ape'[2]) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera Homo (which includes modern humans), Paranthropus, and Kenyanthropus evolved from some Australopithecus species. Australopithecus is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina,[3][4] which sometimes also includes Ardipithecus,[5] though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of Australopithecus. Species include A. garhi, A. africanus, A. sediba, A. afarensis, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali and A. deyiremeda. Debate exists as to whether some Australopithecus species should be reclassified into new genera, or if Paranthropus and Kenyanthropus are synonymous with Australopithecus, in part because of the taxonomic inconsistency.[6][7]
Furthermore, because e.g. A. africanus is more closely related to for instance humans, or their ancestors at the time, than e.g. A. anamensis and many more Australopithecus branches, Australopithecus cannot be consolidated into a coherent grouping without also including the Homo genus and other genera.
The earliest known member of the genus, A. anamensis, existed in eastern Africa around 4.2 million years ago. Australopithecus fossils become more widely dispersed throughout eastern and southern Africa (the Chadian A. bahrelghazali indicates the genus was much more widespread than the fossil record suggests), before eventually becoming pseudo-extinct 1.9 million years ago (or 1.2 to 0.6 million years ago if Paranthropus is included). While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, Australopithecus gave rise to living descendants, as the genus Homo emerged from an Australopithecus species[6][8][9][10][11][excessive citations] at some time between 3 and 2 million years ago.[12]
Australopithecus possessed two of three duplicated genes derived from SRGAP2 roughly 3.4 and 2.4 million years ago (SRGAP2B and SRGAP2C), the second of which contributed to the increase in number and migration of neurons in the human brain.[13][14] Significant changes to the hand first appear in the fossil record of later A. afarensis about 3 million years ago (fingers shortened relative to thumb and changes to the joints between the index finger and the trapezium and capitate).[15]
^Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach; James Hartmann; Jane Setter (eds.), English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-3-12-539683-8
^"Glossary. American Museum of Natural History". Archived from the original on 20 November 2021.
^Wood & Richmond 2000.
^Briggs & Crowther 2008, p. 124.
^Wood 2010.
^ abHaile-Selassie, Y (27 October 2010). "Phylogeny of early Australopithecus: new fossil evidence from the Woranso-Mille (central Afar, Ethiopia)". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 365 (1556): 3323–3331. doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0064. PMC 2981958. PMID 20855306.
^Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Asfaw, B; White, T; Lovejoy, O; Latimer, B; Simpson, S; Suwa, G (1999). "Australopithecus garhi: a new species of early hominid from Ethiopia". Science. 284 (5414): 629–35. Bibcode:1999Sci...284..629A. doi:10.1126/science.284.5414.629. PMID 10213683.
^"Exploring the fossil record: Australopithecus africanus". Bradshaw Foundation. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
^Berger, L. R.; de Ruiter, D. J.; Churchill, S. E.; Schmid, P.; Carlson, K. J.; Dirks, P. H. G. M.; Kibii, J. M. (2010). "Australopithecus sediba: a new species of Homo-like australopith from South Africa". Science. 328 (5975): 195–204. Bibcode:2010Sci...328..195B. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.729.7802. doi:10.1126/science.1184944. PMID 20378811. S2CID 14209370.
^Toth, Nicholas and Schick, Kathy (2005). "African Origins" in The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies (Editor: Chris Scarre). London: Thames and Hudson. Page 60. ISBN 0-500-28531-4
^Kimbel, W.H.; Villmoare, B. (5 July 2016). "From Australopithecus to Homo: the transition that wasn't". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 371 (1698): 20150248. doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0248. PMC 4920303. PMID 27298460.
^Reardon, Sara (2012-05-03). "The humanity switch: How one gene made us brainier". New Scientist. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
^Sporny, Michael; Guez-Haddad, Julia; Kreusch, Annett; Shakartzi, Sivan; Neznansky, Avi; Cross, Alice; Isupov, Michail N.; Qualmann, Britta; Kessels, Michael M.; Opatowsky, Yarden (June 2017). "Structural History of Human SRGAP2 Proteins". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 34 (6): 1463–1478. doi:10.1093/molbev/msx094. ISSN 0737-4038. PMC 5435084. PMID 28333212.
^Tocheri, Matthew W.; Orr, Caley M.; Jocofsky, Marc C.; Marzke, Mary W. (April 2008). "The evolutionary history of the hominin hand since the last common ancestor of Pan and Homo". Journal of Anatomy. 212 (4): 544–562. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.00865.x. PMC 2409097. PMID 18380869.
humans), Paranthropus, and Kenyanthropus evolved from some Australopithecus species. Australopithecus is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes...
sister taxa deriving from Australopithecus, but the classification of Australopithecus species is in disarray. Australopithecus is considered a grade taxon...
media related to Australopithecus africanus. Wikispecies has information related to Australopithecus africanus. MNSU Australopithecus africanus - The Smithsonian...
the earliest Australopithecus femur. The find was in an area known as Middle Awash, home to several other more modern Australopithecus finds and only...
compared to other Australopithecus, either had a slower overall growth rate, or a more rapid leg growth rate. The Ethiopian Australopithecus garhi was first...
is probably most closely related to the species Australopithecus africanus within Australopithecus. The closest living relatives of Homo are of the genus...
Australopithecus sediba is an extinct species of australopithecine recovered from Malapa Cave, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. It is known from a partial...
invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus boisei. Robust australopithecines are...
Australopithecus (Zinjanthropus) boisei in 1964, but in 1967, South African palaeoanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias subsumed it into Australopithecus as...
has also been proposed H. habilis be moved to the genus Australopithecus as Australopithecus habilis. However, the interpretation of H. habilis as a small-statured...
Congo. At present, the classification of Australopithecus and Paranthropus species is in disarray. Australopithecus is considered a grade taxon whose members...
does not belong to the species Australopithecus afarensis or Australopithecus africanus, but to a unique Australopithecus species previously found at Makapansgat...
of their greater age (all predating Australopithecus). At the time Kenyanthropus was discovered, Australopithecus afarensis was the only recognised australopithecine...
invalid grouping and is synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus aethiopicus. Whatever the case, it is...
Australopithecus deyiremeda is an extinct species of australopithecine from Woranso–Mille, Afar Region, Ethiopia, about 3.5 to 3.3 million years ago during...
evidenced by morphological characteristics found in Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis forelimbs, and that it is less parsimonious...
place nearly the entire Australopithecus assemblage at Sterkfontein in the mid-Pliocene, contemporaneous with Australopithecus afarensis in East Africa...
Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3-million-year-old fossil Australopithecus africanus (nicknamed "Mrs. Ples"), found in 1947 by Robert Broom and...
juvenile specimen (face and brain endocast), which he named Australopithecus africanus (Australopithecus meaning "Southern Ape"). Although the brain was small...
that Homo evolved from Australopithecus, the timing and placement of this split has been much debated, with many Australopithecus species having been proposed...
with those of Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and early Homo. The finger bones are long, narrow, and curved, which is seen in Australopithecus, H. floresiensis...
Some analyses describe Australopithecus as being sister to Ardipithecus ramidus specifically. This means that Australopithecus is distinctly closer related...
the split with the common ancestor they share with humans. The genus Australopithecus evolved in eastern Africa around 4 million years ago before spreading...
invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus robustus. Robust australopithecines—as...
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