Australopithecus afarensis

Australopithecus afarensis ("Lucy")
Temporal range: Pliocene
Lucy replica, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Primates
Family:
Hominidae
Subfamily:
Homininae
Genus:
Australopithecus
Binomial name
†Australopithecus afarensis
Johanson & White, 1978

Australopithecus afarensis is an extinct hominid. It lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. A. afarensis was similar to slightly later Australopithecus africanus. It had a slender build.

A. afarensis may be more closely related to the genus Homo than A. africanus. Homo includes the modern human species, Homo sapiens.[1][2]

The most famous fossil is the partial skeleton named Lucy (3.2 million years old) found by Donald Johanson and colleagues, who, in celebration of their find, repeatedly played the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.[1][2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Johanson D.C. & Maitland A.E. 1981. Lucy: the beginning of humankind. St Albans: Granada, 283–297. ISBN 0-586-08437-1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wood B.A. 1994. Evolution of australopithecines. In Jones S. Martin R. & Pilbeam D. (eds) 2004. The Cambridge encyclopedia of human evolution. 8th ed, Cambridge University Press, 234. ISBN 0-521-46786-1