sediba is small in size, with long arms and small cranial capacity. The brain size of A. afarensis was about 400 cc, much smaller than that of a human. Physical characteristics []. Australopithecus robustus was more strongly built than A. afarensis. The arms and fingers were between the length of an ape's and a human's.

As with apes, males of the species, at about four feet tall, were significantly larger than females. Paranthropus robustus is an example of a robust australopithecine; they had very large megadont cheek teeth with thick enamel and focused their chewing in the back of the jaw. In order to determine what changed, I am considering those aspects that are more Homo -like as derived characteristics, regardless of whether predecessors possessed them. Tim D. Lv 7.

The word afarensis is based on the location where some of the first fossils for this species were discovered – the Afar Depression in Ethiopia, Africa Australopithecus sediba’s mixture of primitive traits found in other australopithecines and derived traits also found in Homo makes the evolutionary position of Au. Favorite Answer. Relevance.

While its brain size is much like that of A. afarensis , other characteristics are quite different. What is Australopithecus physical characteristics? After Prof. Raymond Dart described it and named the species Australopithecus africanus (meaning southern ape of Africa), it took more than 20 years for the scientific community to widely accept Australopithecus as a member of the human family tree. Similar to other australopithecine species , Au. Australopithecus robustus possesses a combination of primitive and derived physical traits. But basically Australopithecus walked upright but had a decidedly smaller brain than Homo sapiens. This is the genus or group name and several closely related species now share this name. History of Discovery: The Taung child, found in 1924, was the first to establish that early fossil humans occurred in Africa.

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physical characteristics Note: Distinguishing primitive versus derived characteristics is difficult because we do not have all body parts to compare from one species to the next. Australopithecus means ‘southern ape’ and was originally developed for a species found in South Africa. physical characteristics Note: Distinguishing primitive versus derived characteristics is difficult because we do not have all body parts to compare from one species to the next. sediba an interesting question. Answer Save.

In order to determine what changed, I am considering those aspects that are more Homo -like as derived characteristics, regardless of whether predecessors possessed them.
3 Answers. Its skull had characteristics common to an ape's, although the crowns of the teeth were small like a human's.

Depends on the species. Fossils discovered in Malapa, South Africa, in 2008 were announced as a new species Australopithecus sediba in 2010, but many other palaeontologists consider the fossils to be a chronospecies of A. africanus – meaning that the slight anatomical differences between the new fossils and A. africanus are due to changes over time within a species rather than them being from different species.