Sahelanthropus

Sahelanthropus tchadensis "Toumaï" Temporal range: Messinian, 7–6 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Cast of the skull of Toumaï
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Suborder:	Haplorhini
Infraorder:	Simiiformes
Family:	Hominidae
Genus:	†Sahelanthropus Brunet et al., 2002[1]
Species:	†S. tchadensis
Binomial name
†Sahelanthropus tchadensis Brunet et al., 2002[1]

Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct species of hominid 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. Studies in the 2020s analyzed the femur and ulna, and their results suggested that Sahelanthropus was not habitually bipedal, casting some doubt on its position as a human ancestor.^[2][3]