Australopithecus bahrelghazali

Australopithecus bahrelghazali Temporal range: Piacenzian 3.6/3.5–3 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Suborder:	Haplorhini
Infraorder:	Simiiformes
Family:	Hominidae
Subfamily:	Homininae
Tribe:	Hominini
Genus:	†Australopithecus
Species:	†A. bahrelghazali
Binomial name
†Australopithecus bahrelghazali Brunet et al., 1995
Synonyms
Praeanthropus bahrelghazali

Australopithecus bahrelghazali is an extinct species of australopithecine discovered in 1995 at Koro Toro, Bahr el Gazel, Chad, existing around 3.5 million years ago in the Pliocene. It is the first and only australopithecine known from Central Africa, and demonstrates that this group was widely distributed across Africa as opposed to being restricted to East and southern Africa as previously thought. The validity of A. bahrelghazali has not been widely accepted, in favour of classifying the specimens as A. afarensis, a better known Pliocene australopithecine from East Africa, because of the anatomical similarity and the fact that A. bahrelghazali is known only from 3 partial jawbones and an isolated premolar. The specimens inhabited a lakeside grassland environment with sparse tree cover, possibly similar to the modern Okavango Delta, and similarly predominantly ate C₄ savanna foods—such as grasses, sedges, storage organs, or rhizomes—and to a lesser degree also C₃ forest foods—such as fruits, flowers, pods, or insects. However, the teeth seem ill-equipped to process C₄ plants, so its true diet is unclear.