Meet Australopithecus deyiremeda a newly discovered species that gives some insight into our earliest ancestors. The recent discovery of teeth and jawbone dates back to almost 3 million years ago when ‘Lucy’ (A. afarensis) roamed present-day Ethiopia. This discovery makes it clear that she would have come across other two-legged apes that were similar to herself.
The jawbones found are said to be from three different individuals and adds to the theory that Lucy was not the only hominin species that was present in East Africa. This also leaves evidence that the different species were able to create separate stable living spaces based on diet, foraging strategies and other behaviors.
Stephanie Melillo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said, “We don’t know enough yet to say anything about the nature of interaction or ecological differences between A. afarensis and A. deyiremeda,” she added “We have to first know how to tell the two species apart from their fossil remains, and that is what this paper was all about.”
The new species was found at Burtele, in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia this location is extremely close to Hadar, where Lucy was discovered in 1974. Among the specimen was a partial upper jaw, two lower jaws, and some other fragments. The sediments around the specimen was dated 3.3 million years old. It is well-known that Lucy was also inhabiting the region during this period.
The fragments share characteristics of Lucy but not all, the teeth for example give a clear indication of a difference in diet. Fred Spoor of University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said, “Smaller teeth are often associated with a more meaty diet, and the chewing muscles have migrated forward, which suggests a redistribution of chewing forces of some sort.”
The species name, A. deyrimeda, derives from the local words for “close” (deyi) and “relative” (remeda)—representing the new species close relationship with other hominins.
Author Yohannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History says, “We are convinced that it is different from A. afarensis. All of the evidence—published and unpublished—that we have from the localities at Burtele support our conclusion.”
A. deyrimeda is not this first fossil in the hominin record to be introduced and compared to A. afarensis others include Australopithecus bahrelghazali from Chad, and Kenyanthropus platyops from Kenya.
Source National Geographic
