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by Anonymous on August 3rd, 2005

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Is the modern monkey or ape similar to Australopithecus?

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  • by lynnenorth on October 18th, 2005

    lynnenorth

    Australopithecines had brain sizes a bit larger than chimps. Their faces were somewhat apelike. However, they were fully erect and bipedal, not knucklewalkers, and their hands and arms were far more "human" than "ape", and their teeth were closer to human than ape.

    Aside from full bipedality, some of the specific points of comparison are the proportions of upper to lower limbs (also known as the "humerofemoral index") and the proportion of the bones in the forearm to the upper arm; the wrist bones, which allow more lateral extension in humans than in apes; the length and opposability of the big toe; the relative height of the crowns of the teeth and how far the canine teeth project; and whether the row of teeth in the lower jaw takes a rounded "U" shape, as apes have, or a more square "|_|" shape, as humans have. For the limb proportions, the australopithecines are clustered directly between us and chimps and gorillas, but lie closer to us, with forearm:upper arm proportions unique to hominins; the wrist bones closely resemble those of humans; the big toe (where found) is generally shorter than apes but longer than humans, and not fully opposable, again placing it directly between ape and human groups; the teeth are far closer to those of humans in relative proportion to each other, although larger and with heavier chewing surfaces which more closely resemble those of apes; but the lower jaw is still the apelike "U". In other words, they are classic transitionals.

    Wilfred Le Gros Clark, who was one of the key people to uncover Piltdown as a hoax, published a paper in 1950 comparing the australopithecine remains available at the time to apes and modern humans, and established that 11 key points of the skeleton (including the foramen magnum at the bottom of the skull, teeth, knee joints, arm bones, and the pelvis) that australopithecine were closer to the hominid line than to apes, although some apelike features existed. As examples of the mixtures of features, for instance, brow ridges were much larger than modern human, but much smaller than apes; toes were longer than human and it is possible that the big toe was slightly diverged, but the toes were shorter than apes and, as stated above, the big toe was not fully opposable.

    A more recent comparison than Clark's is dealt with in excruciating detail at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1469-7580.2000.19710019.x/abs/ .

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  • by jwmbiz on August 3rd, 2005

    jwmbiz

    Very ambiguous question. Two eyes, one nose, one mouth, etc...Heck, my cat has some similarities to old Austro.

    But I know what you mean, Dave. The biggest difference is that Austro walked upright. But his brain wasn't much bigger than a modern primate's.

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