• Hungarian hominoid: 10ma upright pygmy ape y

    From DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_l@21:1/5 to All on Fri Sep 10 22:43:34 2021
    On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 9:45:43 AM UTC-4, DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
    The Rudapithecus pelvis was discovered by David Begun, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto who invited Ward to collaborate with him to study this fossil. Begun's work on limb bones, jaws and teeth has shown that Rudapithecus was a
    relative of modern African apes and humans, a surprise given its location in Europe. But information on its posture and locomotion has been limited, so the discovery of a pelvis is important.

    "Rudapithecus was pretty ape-like and probably moved among branches like apes do now—holding its body upright and climbing with its arms," said Ward, a Curators Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in the MU School of Medicine
    and lead author on the study. "However, it would have differed from modern great apes by having a more flexible lower back, which would mean when Rudapithecus came down to the ground, it might have had the ability to stand upright more like humans do.
    This evidence supports the idea that rather than asking why human ancestors stood up from all fours, perhaps we should be asking why our ancestors never dropped down on all fours in the first place."


    Modern African apes have a long pelvis and short lower back because they are such large animals, which is one reason why they typically walk on all fours when on the ground. Humans have longer, more flexible lower backs, which allow them to stand
    upright and walk efficiently on two legs, a hallmark characteristic of human evolution. Ward said if humans evolved from an African ape-like body build, substantial changes to lengthen the lower back and shorten the pelvis would have been required. If
    humans evolved from an ancestor more like Rudapithecus, this transition would have been much more straightforward

    .

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