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 
National Geographic is reporting on the discovery of a new species of prehistoric cheetah discovered in China. The find dates to about 2.15-2.5 MYA. From National Geographic:
The newly studied fossils were dated to the late Pliocene, between 2.15 and 2.55 million years ago..Two prehistoric cheetah-like species of North America are believed by some scientists to be distant cousins of giant cheetahs of ancient Europe.
This possible relationship has led some researchers to speculate that the earliest cheetahs may have originated in North America and traveled across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia
Update 1: I forgot to post a photo of the skull so here it is:
There is some controversy, however, as one scientist, Deng Tao, claims that the new species is just an example of a previously known species, Sivapanthera linxiaensis and that:
Deng also said that the skull in the new study was not an intact original, but rather a compilation from bones of various individuals and possibly even various species.The difference between an intact skull and a compilation is apparent from comparisons of the photos of the skull in the current study and the skulls his team studied, Deng said.
One of the authors of the paper, published in PNAS responded by saying that Deng's specimens were to big to be a cheetah and were probably Panthera (lions, tigers, leopards, and such). Meow! Catfight!
It's going to be interesting to see how this issue is resolved.
Life Science
Comments
At first glance it looks like one of the famous "Gansu Mud Balls". I have taken apart several hundred of them, and it is very hard to wring out any paleontological value. Identifying the species is often tooth, by mudded in tooth. It looks like it could well be a Metailurus, which was Late Miocene.
Posted by: Ron Cauble | January 1, 2009 8:54 PM
This find dates to the late Pliocene, as I mentioned above, at around 2.15-2.50 MYA.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | January 1, 2009 10:20 PM
It would be interesting to find out that cheetahs evolved on this continent, since the latest thinking appears to be that animals like rhinoceros and camels, which we associate with Africa and Asia, may have evolved here, too. I hope to hear more about this discovery.
Posted by: Raymond Minton | January 3, 2009 9:53 PM