Ape Fossils Shed New Light on Evolution of Bipedalism

The 12-million-year-old bones of a previously unknown species named Danuvius guggenmosi challenge the prevailing view about when and where our ancestors first started walking upright.

Written byCatherine Offord

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ABOVE: Although some other extant great apes, such as chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), can walk upright, Homo sapiens is the only species that regularly walks on two legs.
© ISTOCK.COM, CHERYL RAMALHO

Researchers in Germany have discovered the fossilized bones of a previously unknown species of ape that appeared to walk upright, according to a study published yesterday (November 6) in Nature. The bones, which the team dated to nearly 12 million years ago, suggest that bipedalism might have evolved in a common ancestor of humans and other great apes living in Europe, and not in more-recent human ancestors in Africa as many researchers had assumed.

The finding “changes the why, when and where of evolution of bipedality dramatically,” study coauthor Madelaine Böhme, a paleobiologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, tells Reuters.

There are many theories about the evolution of bipedalism, but many assumed that upright walking appeared in our ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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