(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kitchen Table Kibitzing 7/19/23: Hope Of Life [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-07-19 22 years ago today Sahelanthropus tchadensis was discovered. Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct species of the Homininae (African apes) dated to about 7 million years ago, during the Miocene epoch. The species, and its genus Sahelanthropus, was announced in 2002, based mainly on a partial cranium, nicknamed Toumaï, discovered in northern Chad. Sahelanthropus tchadensis lived close to the time of the chimpanzee–human divergence, and was possibly related to Orrorin, a species of Homininae that lived about one million years later. It may have been ancestral to both humans and chimpanzees (which would place it in the tribe Hominini), or alternatively an early member of the tribe Gorillini. In 2020, the femur was analyzed, and results suggested that Sahelanthropus was not habitually bipedal,[2] casting some doubt on its position as a human ancestor, but this was refuted in 2022.[3] Funded by the Mission paléoanthropologique franco-tchadienne [fr], Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye,[4] Fanoné Gongdibé, Mahamat Adoum, and Alain Beauvilain identified the first remains in the Toros-Menalla area (TM 266 locality) in the Djurab Desert of northern Chad. By the time Michel Brunet and colleagues formally described the remains in 2002, a total of six specimens had been recovered: a nearly complete but heavily deformed skull, a fragment of the midline of the jaw with the tooth sockets for an incisor and canine, a right third molar, a right first incisor, a right jawbone with the last premolar to last molar, and a right canine. With the skull as the holotype specimen, they were grouped into a new genus and species as Sahelanthropus tchadensis, the genus name referring to the Sahel, and the species name to Chad. These, along with Australopithecus bahrelghazali, were the first discoveries of any fossil African great ape (outside the genus Homo) made beyond eastern and southern Africa.[1] By 2005, a third premolar was recovered from the TM 266 locality, a lower jaw missing the region behind the second molar from the TM 292 locality, and a lower left jaw preserving the sockets for premolars and molars from the TM 247 locality.[5] The skull was nicknamed "Toumaï", a name from the local Daza language meaning "hope of life", given to infants born just before the dry season. The nickname was suggested by the then-president of Chad, Idriss Déby, in honour of one of his comrades-in-arms who had been killed in the coup d'état against his predecessor, Hissène Habré. Toumaï also became a source of national pride, and Brunet announced the discovery before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a television audience in the capital of N'Djamena, "l'ancêtre de l'humanité est Tchadien...Le berceau de l'humanité se trouve au Tchad. Toumaï est votre ancêtre" ("The ancestor of humanity is Chadian...The cradle of humanity is in Chad. Toumaï is your ancestor.")[6] [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/19/2181381/-Kitchen-Table-Kibitzing-7-19-23-Hope-Of-Life Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/