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Paranthropus aethiopicus (or Australopithecus aethiopicus) is an extinct species of hominin, one of the robust australopithecines. Aethiopicus refers to Ethiopia, which is where its fossils have been discovered as well as in Kenya. They have been dated to approximately 2.5 million years before present.

Size
Paranthropus aethiopicus skull indicated that the cheek tooth rows are long and parallel to one another. A wide gap between left and right molars from the skull found demonstrates that it had wide front teeth. Having wide front teeth is a characteristic that distinguishes it from other Paranthropus species.

Other cranial differences that distinguish it from Paranthropus robustus and Paranthropus boisei are larger incisors, smaller cranial base and mandibular corpus, as well as a shorter postcanine tooth row. Although there is no evidence of postcranial, a proximal tibia has been recovered and is believed to belong to Paranthropus aethiopicus. When looking at details from the morphology of the base of the skull, it is clear that Paranthropus aethiopicus is the least specialized, which also supports the claim that it is the ancestor of the other Paranthropus species

Habitat
Paranthropus aethiopicus is originally from West Turkana and Omo lived in bushland to open woodland around an area of edaphic grasslands. There is not much information on the exact diet of the Paranthropus aethiopicus, but it for sure had to consume a lot of food. Its size is reported to be only one fourth of a gorilla today, hinting that its diet since it lived in grasslands, despite being large, was low in nutrition.

Classification Debates
There have been many debates on whether Paranthropus aethiopicus should even be considered its own species or should it be part of P. boisei. However, there has been enough information to support the claim that it is different enough to be its own species. These differences consist of distinct mandibular premolar cusp morphology between both species. With new findings, larger and more elaborate talonids are also evident. Paranthropus aethiopicus was seen as having too many similarities in order to be a reasonably considered as an ancestor of the other two “robust” species. These similarities consist of the cranial capacity and the basicranial features which are structurally related to size of the brain. Many researchers have come to the conclusion, based on the law of parsimony, that since Paranthropus aethiopicus does not differ dramatically from its ancestor that it was the one who gave rise to the other “robust” species. Anton, M., Martínez Mendizábal, I., Arsuaga, J. L., Martínez, I. (2006). The Chosen Species: The Long March of Human Evolution. United Kingdom: Wiley. Strait, David. (2001). Integration, phylogeny, and the hominid cranial base. American journal of physical anthropology. 114. 273-97. Wood B and Constantino P. Paranthropus boisei: Fifty years of evidence and analysis. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 50:106-132.