Best Pliocene
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Little Foot, catalogued as StW 573, is an unusually complete australopithecine skeleton recovered from the Sterkfontein cave system in South Africa. Its bones were identified gradually beginning in the 1990s and required many years of careful excavation from surrounding rock; dating studies place it...
The Taung Child is the fossilized skull and natural brain endocast of a juvenile Australopithecus africanus discovered at Taung, South Africa, in 1924. Raymond Dart described it in 1925, identifying a combination of ape-like cranial traits and evidence for habitual upright posture. As the first reco...
Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, a partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis discovered by Donald Johanson's team at Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974 and dated to about 3.2 million years ago. The specimen preserves roughly 40 percent of the skeleton, including parts of the pelvis, legs, spine, ribs...
Selam is the nickname of DIK-1-1, a juvenile Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered at Dikika in Ethiopia and dated to about 3.3 million years ago. The specimen preserves an unusually complete skull together with parts of the shoulders, vertebral column, ribs, pelvis, arms, and legs, making...
Carol V. Ward is an American paleoanthropologist and professor specializing in the evolution of human and early hominin anatomy. She is prominently known for her extensive research on the skeletal structure of Australopithecus, particularly focusing on the pelvis, spine, and teeth. Her work has prov...
El’gygytgyn is a Pliocene-era impact crater located in northeastern Russia. It represents one of the best-preserved medium-sized impact craters on Earth. The crater formed approximately 3.6 million years ago and contains a deep lake that has been extensively studied by scientists researching early i...
Friedemann Schrenk is a German paleoanthropologist whose team found the 2.4-million-year-old Homo rudolfensis jaw UR 501 in Malawi in 1991.
Thylacosmilus atrox, a sparassodont from the Miocene–Pliocene of South America, independently evolved elongated saber-like upper canines and bony lower-jaw flanges convergent with those of true saber-toothed cats despite being only distantly related.
Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument protects fossil-bearing deposits along the Snake River in south-central Idaho. Established in 1988, it preserves an extensive record of Pliocene plants and animals, including numerous fossils of Equus simplicidens, commonly called the Hagerman horse. The monume...
Titanis walleri, a large phorusrhacid terror bird from the Pliocene–Pleistocene of Florida and Texas, is notable as one of the very few members of the South American terror bird lineage confirmed to have dispersed into North America.
Flat-faced hominin discovered in Kenya in 1999 and dated to approximately 3.5 million years ago; its distinctive cranial morphology complicates the view of a single linear human ancestry for that period.
Valenictus chulavistensis is an extinct species of walrus that lived during the Pliocene epoch, with fossils primarily discovered in the San Diego Formation of Southern California. It is uniquely specialized among pinnipeds for its complete lack of post-canine teeth in its lower jaw, possessing only...
Ontocetus emmonsi is an extinct walrus known from fossils found on both sides of the North Atlantic, including eastern North America and western Europe. It lived during the Pliocene and belonged to Odobenidae, the family that contains the living walrus. Its broad fossil distribution indicates that i...
Homiphoca capensis is an extinct true seal in the family Phocidae, known from fossils discovered in South Africa. It lived during the Pliocene, rather than the Miocene stated in some summaries, and is represented by cranial and postcranial remains from coastal deposits. Its anatomy has been used in...
An extinct species of fur seal from the Pliocene epoch that represents an early evolutionary stage of the modern northern fur seal genus.
An extinct species of phocid true seal from the Tertiary period, known from fossil remains discovered in Miocene deposits of Maryland, USA.
Extinct giant penguin from Pliocene deposits of New Zealand, related to living emperor and king penguins and described from partial skeletal remains.
Extinct brush-tailed penguin from Pliocene deposits of Chile, larger than any living Pygoscelis species, including the emperor-sized forms of today.
Extinct banded penguin from Chile, known from Neogene deposits and among the fossil relatives of the living Humboldt penguin along the Pacific coast.
Extinct banded penguin from Miocene deposits of Peru and Chile, part of a fossil Spheniscus radiation along the Pacific South American coast.
Extinct crested penguin from South America, known from Neogene deposits and an early fossil representative of the crested penguin genus Eudyptes.
Inguza predemersus is an extinct species of penguin known from Pliocene and Pleistocene fossils discovered along the coast of South Africa.
