Kenyanthropus platyops

Kenyanthropus platyops is an extinct hominid species discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya in 1999. It was by Justus Erus, who was part of Meave Leakey's team.^[1]

Kenyanthropus platyops Temporal range: Pliocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Family:	Hominidae
Subfamily:	Homininae
Genus:	Kenyanthropus
Binomial name
†Kenyanthropus platyops Leakey et al., 2001

Kenyanthropus platyops

The fossil is 3.5 to 3.2 million years old. It has a broad flat face with a toe bone that suggests it probably walked upright. Teeth are intermediate between typical human and typical ape forms.

Leakey proposed that the fossil represents an entirely new hominine genus.^[2] Others classify it as a separate species of Australopithecus, Australopithecus platyops, and still others interpret it as an individual of Australopithecus afarensis.

If some palaeoanthropologists are correct, Kenyanthropus may not even represent a valid taxon. The specimen is so distorted by matrix-filled cracks that meaningful morphological characteristics are next to impossible to assess with confidence.