Nature
Image: Christoph Jäckle
The fossilized remains of a newly discovered species of ancient ape suggest that it might have been able to walk on two feet, millions of years before the first humans appeared.
The finding challenges the accepted idea that bipedal walking evolved much later in the ancestors of modern humans, and that having a skeleton adapted for regularly moving around on two feet is a unique and defining feature of hominins, the evolutionary group to which we belong. Not all researchers agree with the conclusions, however, and it is not yet clear where the ancient animal fits in the ape evolutionary tree. Read more on nature.com…
