Meet Ardi, your 4.4m year old mum

Meet Ardi, your 4.4m year old mum

IF you've got a thing for older women, meet Ardi.
She's only 1.2m (4ft), weighs just under 50kg (110 pounds) and is somewhat hirsute. Oh, and she's 4.4million years old.

Ardi roamed forests in what is now Ethiopia 1million years before Lucy, previously the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor to have been discovered.
'This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution,' said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy.

Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some common ancestor but each evolved and changed separately along the way.

'This is not that common ancestor but it's the closest we have ever been able to come,' said evolutionary biologist Prof Tim White.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor 6million to 7million years ago.

Ardi's bones were first discovered in 1994. Extensive study since then indicates the species lived in the woodlands and could climb on all fours along tree branches, but the development of her arms and legs indicates she did not spend much time in the trees. She could walk upright on two legs when on the ground.

Formally dubbed Ardipithecus ramidus, which means root of the ground ape, Ardi's find is detailed in this week's edition of Science.