Selam and Lucy – Upright Walking Apes
This was an upright walking ape that was a close ancestor to us. Selam was a 3-year-old female found in 1974 that proved that the species grew up faster than us because her molars that we get at twelve were fully grown at three. Selam was a close ancestor to modern humans because of how she walked and how she could think. She and her kind had a slightly smaller brain size than us. This caused them to not retain information as well as we can. Lucy was thought to be the first “human”. She was deemed this because of her walking upright instead of on all fours like previous apes.
This proved that apes went through some kind of change that made them walk upright like modern humans. Lucy was also an Australopithecus afarensis like Selam which shows that the species adapted and lived through generations. Lucy had an almost complete skeleton which helped scientists look at her pelvis to prove that she walked on two legs rather than four. Lucy died about 3.3 million years ago from an aortic dissection. The Turkana boy is a homo erectus that lived from 1.5 to 1.6 million years ago. He was a human ancestor that lived in Kenya. The Turkana boy was a hunter that used fire and had family bonds. It is thought that he died from gum disease because his complete skeleton shows no attack of an animal. Turkana boy had less fur than previous apes such as Lucy. He is thought to be the missing link between Lucy and the modern homo sapiens. He had some similarities and differences to homo sapiens and Lucy this caused people to believe that he solved the puzzle of evolution but there was much more to come.
Charles Darwin’s Findings
Charles Darwin was credited with the most prominent evolution theory. He went on a voyage on the H.M.S Beagle to South America to go around the world but ended up studying about the evolution of finches in the Galapagos islands. He found that all the finches were an offspring of the finches on the mainland. They all had different beak sizes based on which island they live on and what food they eat. This shows the theory of natural selection that shows desirable traits for certain animals. The three fossils are just some major ones; there are so many more in the fossil record that provide many missing links in the theory of evolution. If you look at Darwin and how far he has come is a type of evolution in itself. Some people may never believe some people will, it is nothing you can do. From Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos islands to the nomads of Africa, evolution is all around us we just have to look.
