Question

Discuss and describe the morphology of at least 3 of the different proposed species of the genus Australopithecus. What do the morphological similarities between the species tell us about this stage of hominin evolution?

Answer 1

Genus	Age of Appearance million years ago	Skull	Brain capacity/cm3	Teeth	Diet	Posture	Significance
Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy)	4.0	large jaws	450	small canines, small incisors	herbivorous	fully erect	still at home in trees but savannah dwellers
A. africans	2.5	ventral foramen	450	small canines	carnivorous	fully erect	small game hunters, many variant forms.
A. robustus	1.8 to 1.2	large megadont cheek teeth, thick enamel and chewed at the back of the jaw	523	huge teeth, massive jaws	omnivorous	3 feet tall	large cheek bones, strong chewing muscles allowed them to grind down tough, fibrous food.

A. afarensis and A. africans had same caranial capacity, almost same teeth structure, had same type of diet, were erect, dwellers and hunted. Whereas, A. robustus had a little different skull structure, had larger cranial capcity, huge teeth and jaws, were omnivore,erect and strong cheek bone.

When compared to the present day in regard to evolution we slowely adapted to the ominvore diet and grew taller, our cranial capcity also increased and we chew our food at the back of our jaw.