File:Australopithecus africanus fossil hominid (Taung skull) (Upper Pliocene, 2.8 Ma; quarry near Taung, North West Province, South Africa).jpg
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English: Australopithecus africanus Dart, 1925 - fossil hominid (Taung skull) from the Pliocene of South Africa. (replica of the holotype specimen ("Taung skull") - the original is at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; public display, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio, USA)
Hominids are humans. Fossils of the human family are known back to the Miocene, with many species known from Pliocene and Pleistocene sedimentary rocks. Only one species in Family Hominidae is alive today, in the late Holocene - that's us, Homo sapiens. Hominids originated in Africa - that's where the oldest human fossils occur. Everyone on Earth is African, from an evolutionary point-of-view. The species Australopithecus africanus existed from about 2.04 to 3.03 million years ago, during the Late Pliocene in South Africa. The discovery specimen is a child's skull and brain endocast (see this photo) - this is the Taung Skull. The position of the foramen magnum at the bottom of the skull indicates that this organism was an upright biped. Hundreds of fossils of this species are now known from South Africa. Like its ancestral species, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus was probably a fruit and leaf eater. Close examination of the Taung skull shows evidence of predation by a large bird of prey. Eagle-type predation damage is present in the form of scratches on the face and paleobreaks in the bony basal areas of the orbits (eye sockets). Modern monkey skulls preyed upon by African crowned eagles show similar damage. Non-hominid fossil primate skulls from South Africa have also been found bearing traces of eagle predation. For more info. on this, see Berger & McGraw (2007) - Further evidence for predation of, and feeding damage on, the Taung child. South African Journal of Science 103: 496-498. Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Primates, Hominidae Stratigraphy: Upper Pliocene, 2.8 Ma Locality: quarry near Taung, North West Province, South Africa |
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| Source | https://www.flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/15277121727/ |
| Author | James St. John |
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by James St. John at https://flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/15277121727. It was reviewed on 3 December 2020 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0. |
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