Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
I was planning on writing about the new Homo erectus pelvis but when I got home I discovered a crisis - Firefox gave me error messages and wouldn't open (which meant no bookmarks and hence no access to anything important like this blog). Spent about an hour getting that straightened out. I'll get the H. erectus post up tomorrow. In the meantime here are some really interesting stories.
The above is a pygmy tarsier - a species previously thought to be extinct but National Geographic is reporting that three pygmy tarsiers have been discovered. Let's hope there are more...
PhysOrg also has the story.
Science Daily talks about a story I have blogged about previously. From Science Daily:
Laurie R. Godfrey, professor of anthropology at U Mass Amherst and lemur expert, played a key role in the process in which contemporary researchers were able to match newly found bones with those discovered in a cave in Madagascar in 1899 to construct much of the skeleton of a rare species of extinct lemur.
Update 1: D'oh hoodwinked by a press release and National Geographic (and not doing proper research before writing). Tarsius pumilus. A number of sites ranging from Science Daily to PhysOrg.com and National Geographic (both linked to above) hint or flatly state that the pygmy tarsier was extinct or thought to be extinct. This is true but debatable. Some scientist have thought the pygmy tarsier was extinct based on the fact that only two legitimate specimens were known to science as of 1987 when they wrote their study of the pygmy tarsier. They are however, poorly known. The three articles linked to above all contain one other error. They all state that the pygmy tarsier has claws instead of nails. This is incorrect. Pygmy tarsiers have compressed nails that form a keel down the midline giving them a claw-like appearance (in this respect they are like Euoticus).
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Go on, tell the truth. Firefox was fine - you just wanted to post a cute photograph.
Next time photoshop it so that it has pink fur, and go for the cute overload. :-)
Posted by: Bob O'H | November 19, 2008 2:34 AM
It's a larval yoda!
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | November 19, 2008 5:43 AM
Let's hope that they are not all male or all female.
Larval Yoda? No. With those eyes, it looks like a baby picture of Jabba the Hut.
Posted by: (((Billy))) | November 20, 2008 1:26 PM
PhysOrg has it right...it's a Furby! Even the ears are similar.
Posted by: MOToole | December 3, 2008 1:30 PM