Word: ancestors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...recent study in Western Ecuador was prompted by a 2002 study in Costa Rica, which focused on two species of geographically separated butterflies with a common ancestor. Although these white– and yellow–winged species had once been the same species, members of each preferred mating with butterflies of the same species—an example of what is known as assortative mating preference...
Ardi is the earliest and best-documented descendant of that common ancestor. But despite being "so close to the split," says White, the surprising thing is that she bears little resemblance to chimpanzees, our closest living primate relatives. The elusive common ancestor's bones have never been found, but scientists, working from the evidence available - especially analyses of Australopithecus and modern African apes - envisioned Great-Great-Grandpa to have looked most nearly like a knuckle-walking, tree-swinging ape. But "[Ardi is] not chimplike," according to White, which means that the last common ancestor probably wasn't either. "This skeleton...
...style in trees. Rather, she moved along branches using a primitive method of palm-walking typical of extinct apes. "[Ardi is] a lovely Darwinian creature," says Penn State paleoanthropologist Alan Walker, who was not involved in the discovery. "It has features that are intermediate between the last common ancestor and australopithecines...
...females, and their own offspring, by foraging for and sharing food, for example - a change in behavior that could help explain why bipedality arose. Carrying food is difficult in the woods, after all, if you can't free up your forelimbs by walking erect. (Read "Ida: Humankind's Earliest Ancestor! [Not Really...
...smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. "Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew," says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved or what she reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and chimps...