Top Results for Pliocene

The Taung Child is the fossilized skull and natural brain endocast of a juvenile Australopithecus africanus discovered at Taung, South Africa, in 1924. Raymond Dart described it in 1925, identifying a combination of ape-like cranial traits and evidence for habitual upright posture. As the first reco...

Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, a partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis discovered by Donald Johanson's team at Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974 and dated to about 3.2 million years ago. The specimen preserves roughly 40 percent of the skeleton, including parts of the pelvis, legs, spine, ribs...

Selam is the nickname of DIK-1-1, a juvenile Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered at Dikika in Ethiopia and dated to about 3.3 million years ago. The specimen preserves an unusually complete skull together with parts of the shoulders, vertebral column, ribs, pelvis, arms, and legs, making...

Carol V. Ward is an American paleoanthropologist and professor specializing in the evolution of human and early hominin anatomy. She is prominently known for her extensive research on the skeletal structure of Australopithecus, particularly focusing on the pelvis, spine, and teeth. Her work has prov...

El’gygytgyn is a Pliocene-era impact crater located in northeastern Russia. It represents one of the best-preserved medium-sized impact craters on Earth. The crater formed approximately 3.6 million years ago and contains a deep lake that has been extensively studied by scientists researching early i...

Friedemann Schrenk is a prominent German paleoanthropologist known for his extensive research on human evolution and hominin fossils. Working in Africa, he led the team that discovered the 2.4-million-year-old Homo rudolfensis jawbone, known as UR 501, in Malawi in 1991. He has been affiliated with...

Thylacosmilus atrox, a sparassodont from the Miocene–Pliocene of South America, independently evolved elongated saber-like upper canines and bony lower-jaw flanges convergent with those of true saber-toothed cats despite being only distantly related.

Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument protects fossil-bearing deposits along the Snake River in south-central Idaho. Established in 1988, it preserves an extensive record of Pliocene plants and animals, including numerous fossils of Equus simplicidens, commonly called the Hagerman horse. The monume...

Titanis walleri, a large phorusrhacid terror bird from the Pliocene–Pleistocene of Florida and Texas, is notable as one of the very few members of the South American terror bird lineage confirmed to have dispersed into North America.

Flat-faced hominin discovered in Kenya in 1999 and dated to approximately 3.5 million years ago; its distinctive cranial morphology complicates the view of a single linear human ancestry for that period.

Valenictus chulavistensis is an extinct species of walrus that lived during the Pliocene epoch, with fossils primarily discovered in the San Diego Formation of Southern California. It is uniquely specialized among pinnipeds for its complete lack of post-canine teeth in its lower jaw, possessing only...

Ontocetus emmonsi is an extinct walrus known from fossils found on both sides of the North Atlantic, including eastern North America and western Europe. It lived during the Pliocene and belonged to Odobenidae, the family that contains the living walrus. Its broad fossil distribution indicates that i...

Homiphoca capensis is an extinct true seal in the family Phocidae, known from fossils discovered in South Africa. It lived during the Pliocene, rather than the Miocene stated in some summaries, and is represented by cranial and postcranial remains from coastal deposits. Its anatomy has been used in...

Callorhinus gilmorei is an extinct species of fur seal known from the Pliocene fossil record. It belongs to Callorhinus, the genus that includes the living northern fur seal, but represents an earlier form in the history of that lineage. The species is studied through fossil remains rather than obse...

An extinct species of phocid true seal from the Tertiary period, known from fossil remains discovered in Miocene deposits of Maryland, USA.

Aptenodytes ridgeni, or Ridgen's penguin, is an extinct penguin known from fossil material in North Canterbury, New Zealand, and placed in the same genus as living king and emperor penguins. The type material consists mainly of well-preserved leg bones found at Motunau Beach in 1968 by Alan Ridgen,...

Pygoscelis grandis is an extinct penguin species known from a partial skeleton in the Bahía Inglesa Formation of northern Chile. The fossils are assigned to the genus Pygoscelis, which includes living brush-tailed penguins, but P. grandis was much larger than any living member of that genus and was...

Spheniscus chilensis is an extinct banded penguin known from Late Pliocene marine deposits on the Mejillones Peninsula near Antofagasta in northern Chile. The species was described from disarticulated bones, including a complete left humerus, recovered at the Cuenca del Tiburón locality in the Calet...

Spheniscus muizoni is an extinct banded penguin from the latest middle to earliest late Miocene of Peru. It is known from a partial postcranial skeleton and associated bones found at Cerro la Bruja in the Pisco Formation, and its anatomy places it within Spheniscus, the genus that includes several l...

Eudyptes calauina is an extinct crested penguin from the Late Pliocene of central Chile. It is known from isolated bones in the Horcon Formation of the Valparaiso region and was described as a medium-sized member of the genus Eudyptes, whose living species occupy temperate and subantarctic environme...

Inguza predemersus is an extinct penguin species known from Late Pliocene fossil deposits at Langebaanweg in South Africa. It was first described as Spheniscus predemersus and was later placed in the separate genus Inguza, which contains only this species. The available material includes a distincti...