A Revelation About The Discovery Of Fossil Ape And It Is Quite Astonishing
The newly-discovered fossils of the ancient ape give scientists clues regarding when and how the use of two legs while walking evolved.
The inbuilt ability of a human being to walk upright is one of the key characteristics that can be considered to be unique.
To hang from the trees the ape is endowed naturally with arms on the contrary legs are there for human beings.
It could be sometime around 12 million years ago they may have walked in the ground or have walked along the branches, according to researchers who have pushed the timeline back with things related to bipedal walking.
The evidence for the earliest fossil until now with regards to walking upright is dated back to some six million years ago.
The unearthing of four fossils that included one juvenile, two females and one male from a clay pit happened between the years 2015 and 2018 in Bavaria.
According to professor Madelaine Bohme who belongs to the University of Tubingen on Germany, that it is a milestone breakthrough in palaeoanthropology regarding the findings that happened in Southern Germany as fundamental questions are raised regarding the understanding of the previous evolution of the humans and the great apes.
According to her, the best model could be the ape since it is the missing link between apes and humans.
The evolving of bipedal walking as the discovery has got something to say about it.
An intense debate has been going on from the times of Charles Darwin to figure out when and how our ancestors who came earlier than us used two legs and started walking on it.
Questions were raised as to whether this key characteristics belonging to human arise from that of an ape which is very much like the orangutan who is an ancestor that walked on knuckles and it is the trees where they lived as most of their time was spend on the ground which is very much similar to that of gorilla.
The Nature journal published news research which has been suggesting that the upright posture has originated from ancestors who are common to humans and the great apes that we are talking about did not live in Africa as has been thought previously rather they lived in Europe.
The Danuvius guggenmosi fossils whose living dates back to 11.62 million years ago have been suggesting that it has adapted very well to both walking on two legs as well as walking upright as all the four limbs are used by them while they used to climb like an ape.
The findings of the bipedal walking suggested that this kind of walking evolved 12 million years ago in the trees according to researchers.
Professor David Begun from the University of Toronto who is also a researcher said that typical climbing of living apes is very much like the Danuvius which combines the bipedality of hindlimb dominated humans along with forelimb -dominated.
The male ape has got a skeleton which is mostly complete that has a resemblance to the modern-day bonobos. The height of it is near about one meter and the weight scale is tipped at 31 kg. the weight of the females is almost 18 kg which is even lesser than any living great ape today.
The limb bones have been well preserved along with the toe bones, finger and vertebra and the credit go to the researchers as the movement of the animal has been reconstructed by them with great effect.
According to Professor Bohme, several functionalities have been investigated for the first time as a part of this age single fossil skeleton which includes ankle and knee along with hip, elbow and other important joints. According to him, they were astonished to realize that certain bones are similar to humans and are dissimilar to the great apes.
The locomotion, posture and the build of the animals are very much unique among the primates. Many fundamental questions can be answered regarding the evolution of the species we belong to like how we started walking on two feet promises to answer these.
In human evolution one of the key milestones is walking upright so that opportunities are opened up to explore, touch and learn the process of using tools and ways to carry it.
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