this week, i will be talking about hominins. Specifically, i will be elaborating on a couple different ways that hominins have evolved, some of their traits, and above all, what all this means when it comes to teaching us about evolutionary biology. I will be doing this by focusing my blog on 2 different types of hominins that stuck out to me: the A. garhi and the A. afarensis.

First, the A. garhi. Throughout my time at Michigan State, as a human biology major, one of the classes i took was a population biology class that for a short period of time focused on evolutionary biology. Throughout what i learned and what i remember from that class from freshman year, some things stuck with me that i saw in these lectures. For example, i remember learning a lot about the genus homo in that class, and that is why A. garhi really stood out to me; because of its similarity to the genus homo. Among many things, some of the traits that are similar between the two are the large front teeth, similar arm to leg length ratio, and similar premolar shape. In these two, the premolars are strong and large which might suggest a variety in the diet that they used to eat due to their premolars. From this knowledge, we can also look at the premolars of modern humans and tell that we can also eat a variety of food in our diet, showing a relationship there.

The other group that i wanted to focus on is called the Australopithecus afarensis. Among other things, this species were known for their long limbs such as long arms and long curved fingers. They also had a substantially smaller brain and sexual diporphism of the body and teeth. These features that i have just listed can tell us a lot about not only the nature of this group at the time, but also a lot about evolutionary biology relating to modern humans. For example, the sexual dimorphism. This trait is incredibly important in identifying humans today. When talking about the small brains of these types of hominins, it is very similar to the brain size of modern day apes, which shows a strong relationship there between the two.

Today, having this knowledge can be incredibly important to scientists when doing new research on a possible new species or extended research on an existing one. This is because for intense they can take their knew findings, compare it to what we already know about hominins and different types of species, and then in turn be able to draw new conclusions and connections in the evolutionary lineage. In addition, things like relative dating can be really helpful when depicting certain traits and comparing them to species based on where evidence such as fossils have been found.