For the last month, we've been engaged in a long skull-a-thon on Fossil Friday. We had Homo rhodesiensis and Homo ergaster and Australopithecus africanus—oh my!
So who was last week's unfortunate specimen?
From Eric Meikle:
"This specimen is the beautifully preserved, nearly complete cranium of an extinct fossil monkey, Theropithecus brumpti. It derives from sediments approximately 2.5 million years old of the Shungura Formation in southern Ethiopia. The specimen is a young adult male."
And the clue?
"This week's clue was 'what beast is this?'. The Greek root ther means animal or beast, so Theropithecus is the 'beast-ape', using ape in the archaic general sense which refers to both apes and monkeys. (The name dates to 1843.)"
Many thanks to Eric Meikle who gave me support and cheat sheets on all of those skulls! I don't know about you, but I am all skulled out. For the next month, I promise no more skulls...but maybe a sloth instead?
