A picture taken September 1, 2002 shows "Littlefoot", an almost complete hominid skeleton (Photo : REUTERS/Yoav Lemmer/POOL)
Research indicates that the hominid fossil termed as Little Foot which was uncovered in a cave in South Africa existed on this planet 3.7 million years ago. Once the age of the fossil had been determined, it has been found that Little Foot was coexisting with another famous human ancestor from the species of Australopithecus Afarensis who is famously known as Lucy, according to Time Magazine.
Little Foot is a member of the species Australopithecus Prometheus. The species of Lucy and Little Foot has blended ape and human-like traits but different physical features. The species of Little Foot was much bigger and taller than Lucy's species, and had the facial features of a Gorilla. They were fully upright and possessed strong and powerful hands for climbing trees. The hands were like human hands with long thumbs and relatively short fingers and palms, unlike modern apes that have elongated arms compared to their legs, they had slightly longer legs compared to their arms, as stated by paleoanthropologists Ron Clarke and Kathy Kuman from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, according to The Telegraph.
The facial structure similarities and some similarities in teeth have been found between Little Foot and Paranthropus which is a later hominid species. These factors indicate that Little Foot's species could have been an ancestor or a close cousin to Paranthropus. Like Lucy the Little Foot fossil that has been discovered is a female specimen.
Scientists still wonder how many variants of the Australopithecus species existed, and if they coexisted in the same time period or not. With the discovery Little Foot's fossil and determination of her time period of existence a lot of information could be gained about Human Evolution.
