Ardipithecus is a hominid species from Ethiopia, discovered in 1994 but only just revealed in her full glory by the team who have laboured for 15 years to pull her bits together to give us a clear image…
Credits: Illustrations by J.H. Matternes
…and who does she remind you of? For me those divergent big toes remind me instantly of Oreopithecus bambolii, the putatively bipedal ape from Sardinia & Tuscany, who lived during the Miocene. Marcel Williams has made the case for Oreopithecus being a hominid, if not a direct ancestor, of humans – maybe he’s on to something.