New human species found

A famous paleontology family has found fossils that they think confirm their theory that there are two additional pre-human species besides the one that eventually led to modern humans. A team led by Meave Leakey, daughter-in-law of famed scientist Louis Leakey, found the facial and jaw bones of three different creatures at Koobi Fora, east of Lake Turkana, Kenya between 2007 and 2009. The jaw fragments are believed to be between 1.78 and 1.95 million years old. That has led the researchers to conclude that man’s early ancestor had plenty of human-like company from other species. Until recently, it was believed that modern humans’ ancestors, of the species Homo erectus, shared the ancient African plains with Homo habilis. But Leakey’s discovery suggests that they may have been joined by yet another close relative, dubbed Homo rudolfensis. The name Homo rudolfensis has been drawn from the former name of Lake Turkana, Lake Rudolf. “It had very flat facial features - you could draw a straight line from its eye socket to where its incisor teeth would be,” researcher Fred Spoor at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, told  LiveScience. Leakey said that the bones were “unusually complete,” even retaining several upper teeth. This made it possible to extrapolate the probable shape of the lower jaw of the new species. From : Gulftoday