Australopithecus deyiremeda

Australopithecus deyiremeda
Temporal occurrence
	Pliocene
	3.5 to 3.3 million years
Locations
	East Africa : Woranso-Mille ( Ethiopia );
Systematics
	Human (Hominoidea)
	Apes (Hominidae)
	Homininae
	Hominini
	Australopithecus
	Australopithecus deyiremeda
Scientific name
	Australopithecus deyiremeda
	Haile-Selassie et al., 2015

Australopithecus deyiremeda is a species of the extinct genus Australopithecus . Fossils thatwere assigned to Australopithecus deyiremeda come from around 3.5 to 3.3 million year old layers of the paleontological excavation area Woranso-Mille in the western center of the Afar region in Ethiopia . The species was first described in May 2015 and existed at the same time and in the same region as Australopithecus afarensis .

Naming

Australopithecus is an artificial word . The name of the genus is derived from the Latin australis 'southern' and the Greek πίθηκος (old Greek pronounced) píthēkos 'monkey'. The epithet deyiremeda is composed of the words deyi ('near') and remeda ('relative') of the Afar language and means "close relative". Australopithecus deyiremeda consequently meaning "closely related, southern monkey".

Initial description

In the first description of Australopithecus deyiremeda, the holotype was named as the fragment of the left half of an upper jaw - archive number BRT-VP-3/1 - with six preserved teeth (2nd incisor to 2nd molar ), which M. Barao had been discovered. In addition, a well-preserved lower jaw (BRT-VP-3/14) broken into two parts was selected as a paratype . According to the analyzes of their discoverer, Yohannes Haile-Selassie , these finds differ in the pronounced thickness of the tooth enamel and the particularly pronounced solidity of the jawbone from the findings made for Australopithecus afarensis . The fossils on which the first description is based are surface finds that were weathered out of the sandstone floor.

Tim White commented cautiously on the interpretation of the finds as a new species: It could be that the finds are only evidence of a greater anatomical variability of Australopithecus afarensis than previously assumed.

The abbreviation BRT stands for Burtele , the place where the holotype was found has the coordinates 11 ° 27 '43.9 "north, 40 ° 31' 41.0" east. The repository of the finds is the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa .

literature

Fred Spoor: Palaeoanthropology: The middle Pliocene gets crowded. In: Nature . Volume 521, No. 7553, 2015, pp. 432-433, doi: 10.1038 / 521432a

Web links

Pre-humans: Lucy's neighbors of a different kind. On: spiegel.de from May 28, 2015
Cleveland Museum of Natural History: Curator Discovers New Human Ancestor Species. On: cmnh.org of May 27, 2015 (English)
New Human Ancestor Species from Ethiopia Lived Alongside Lucy's Species. On: cmnh.org from May 27, 2015 (English, with several images)
New human ancestor was Lucy's cousin and neighbor. On: sciencemag.org of May 27, 2015 (English)

Individual evidence

^ Yohannes Haile-Selassie et al .: New species from Ethiopia further expands Middle Pliocene hominin diversity. In: Nature . Volume 521, 2015, pp. 483-488, doi: 10.1038 / nature14448
↑ New human ancestor species from Ethiopia lived alongside Lucy's species. On: eurekalert.org of May 27, 2015
^ New species of early human was Lucy's neighbor in Africa. On: newscientist.com of May 27, 2015 (English)

[1] Yohannes Haile-Selassie et al .: New species from Ethiopia further expands Middle Pliocene hominin diversity. In: Nature . Volume 521, 2015, pp. 483-488, doi: 10.1038 / nature14448

[2] New human ancestor species from Ethiopia lived alongside Lucy's species. On: eurekalert.org of May 27, 2015

[3] New species of early human was Lucy's neighbor in Africa. On: newscientist.com of May 27, 2015 (English)