Last week, on the Fossil Friday, I asked you to come up with the scientific names and common nicknames for one fossil. KC came up with the most names in the shortest amount of time. Go KC!
So, who did this skull belong to?
From Eric Meikle (one of NCSE's anthropologists):
"This specimen is Olduvai Hominid 5, found by Mary Leakey in 1959 and known variously as OH5, "Zinj", "Nutcracker Man", "Dear Boy", Zinjanthropus boisei, Australopithecus boisei, or Paranthropus boisei. It was the first well-preserved example of the hyper-robust East African "australopithecines" to be discovered and studied in detail.
As I discussed in this recent post the accurate potassium-argon dating of Olduvai Gorge is a landmark in the history of paleoanthropology. Along with the Taung child from last week's Fossil Friday, OH5 is one of the half dozen most historically significant discoveries in the human fossil record."
You can find out more about this fossil at the Smithsonian's website.
