South African Fossils Could Be New Hominid Species

[Smaug]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8609192.stm

[Nicholas]

I hate to be a naysayer but I bet its older than Australopithecine, as far as we know "Lucy" and her kind had longer arms and shorter legs than us but not in the extremes that we see in the Orangutan. Perhaps it was a poor choice of wording on Lee Berger's part, but if it is to that extreme then I do have my doubts of it being post Australopithecine.

If I am wrong or right It is still a very significant find.

[Nicholas]

Here is more on this find from NatGeo:

Find it HERE!

I dismiss my other comment. The writing was particularly overstated the arms are not exceptionally long like an orangutan. It is still an intriguing find and will stir quite a bit of debate if this species should be a Homo or an Australopithecus

[JimB88]

I believe they had this on 60 minutes last night. The person who found it believes it to be a type of Australopithecus from 1.8 million years ago. Neat!

[Nicholas]

To my knowledge it isn't written into the literature yet, but it seems with the amount of scholarly interest in it that there should be some more definitive answers available very soon.