A lower jaw fossil of leopard next to a youthful skull fragment of the A. robustus de Swartkrans.
The bones of a young female Paranthropus strong Encouraged in South Africa show that the one who is the smallest human relative ever found may have been devoured by a leopard for 2 million years.
With only 1,03 metros At height, the adult is the smaller human relative ever found.
This ancestor, found in South Africa, died 2 million years ago, and can still be lower than our famous and the mysterious group of small.
According to a new study, in the latest edition of the Journal of Human Evolutionthe newly discovered individual-designated SWT1/HR-2-Died devoured by a leopard.
When investigators began to dig the blocks from the laboratory, they discovered three bones of connection – the left hip, the femur and the tibia. All of a young adult hominid. With signs of being attacked by a feline.
Based on the form of bones, researchers think that this individual was a female of the species A. robustusalso known as Australopitecneo robust due to the large size of your teeth and face.
It was the thorough examination of the bones that revealed the probable cause of the death of this young female. According to the investigators, the leopard tend to stay in the trees near caves and prefer to attack prey weighing about 25 pounds.
This small A. robustuswhich was found inside a cave, probably Weighed about 27.4 kg.
Other fossils on site also have drilling marks that correspond to leopard teeth, as C.K. Brain -In the meantime deceased (1931-2023), but which contributed to the current study.
Although the bones of the legs provide new and important evidence of what P. robustus’s life was like, the small size of this species remains a mystery.
Currently, there is no evidence that the species was affected by dwarfism, Jason Heatonstudy co -author and a paleoantropologist at the University of Alabama.
To the same magazine, the main author of the study, Travis PickeringPaleoantropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that more excavations in South Africa will be needed: “There is a good chance of recovering much more from the SWT1/HR-2 skeleton, especially if we are right and she has been killed and food by a leopard, since leopards usually do not consume bones.”
