Australopithecus sediba
Americannoun
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an extinct species of early hominin whose fossil remains were discovered in South Africa in 2008, dated at about 1.98 million years of age: remarkably complete skeletons reveal evidence suggesting a possible close ancestral link to the genus Homo .
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a fossil belonging to this species.
Etymology
Origin of Australopithecus sediba
Australopithecus ( def. ) + Sotho sediba “natural well, spring”; coined by American-born South African paleoanthropologist Lee Berger (born 1965)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Recent decades have seen the discovery of several new hominin species, from Australopithecus sediba to Homo floresiensis.
From Science Daily • Apr. 17, 2024
In a series of papers published in Science between 2010 and 2013, Berger and more than a dozen co-authors described a new species: Australopithecus sediba.
From The New Yorker • Jun. 20, 2016
He found many fewer fossils that time, but enough to conclude that he was looking at a new species, which he named Australopithecus sediba.
From New York Times • Sep. 10, 2015
Berger did the same with remains of a species called Australopithecus sediba that were discovered at the Malapa site.
From Nature • Sep. 9, 2015
Lower jaws, or mandibles, attributed to early human ancestor Australopithecus sediba differ in the shape of the so-called mandibular notch--the indentation in the top portion of the bone.
From Scientific American • Apr. 17, 2014
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
