Australopithecine

Rare card · No. 61864

The australopithecines (), formally Australopithecina or Hominina, are generally any species in the related genera of Australopithecus and Paranthropus. It may also include members of Kenyanthropus, Ardipithecus, and Praeanthropus. The term comes from a former classification as members of a distinct subfamily, the Australopithecinae. They are classified within the Australopithecina subtribe of the Hominini tribe. These related species are sometimes collectively termed australopithecines, or australopiths. They are the extinct, close relatives of modern humans and, together with the extant genus Homo, comprise the human clade. Members of the human clade, i.e. the Hominini after the split from the chimpanzees, are called Hominina (see Hominidae; terms "hominids" and hominins). While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, the australopithecines do not appear to be extinct (in the sense of having no living descendants) as the genera Kenyanthropus, Paranthropus...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Photo by Brett Eloff. Courtesy Profberger and Wits University who release it under the terms below., CC BY-SA 4.0