A new hominin foot from Ethiopia shows multiple Pliocene bipedal adaptations.

Bibliographic Collection:

APE Field Course

Publication Type: Journal Article

Authors: Haile-Selassie, Yohannes; Saylor, Beverly Z; Deino, Alan; Levin, Naomi E; Alene, Mulugeta; Latimer, Bruce M

Year of Publication: 2012

Journal: Nature

Volume: 483

Issue: 7391

Pagination: 565-9

Date Published: 2012 Mar 29

Publication Language: eng

ISSN: 1476-4687

Keywords: Adaptation, Physiological, Animals, Biological Evolution, Ethiopia, Foot, Foot Bones, Fossils, Gait, Hominidae, Humans, Principal Component Analysis, Walking

Abstract:

A newly discovered partial hominin foot skeleton from eastern Africa indicates the presence of more than one hominin locomotor adaptation at the beginning of the Late Pliocene epoch. Here we show that new pedal elements, dated to about 3.4 million years ago, belong to a species that does not match the contemporaneous Australopithecus afarensis in its morphology and inferred locomotor adaptations, but instead are more similar to the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus in possessing an opposable great toe. This not only indicates the presence of more than one hominin species at the beginning of the Late Pliocene of eastern Africa, but also indicates the persistence of a species with Ar. ramidus-like locomotor adaptation into the Late Pliocene.

Notes:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/nature10922.html

URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22460901

DOI: 10.1038/nature10922

Custom 1:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22460901?dopt=Abstract

Alternate Journal: Nature

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