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.
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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 ...
