Plesianthropus transvaalensis

Australopithecus africanus Temporal range: Late Pliocene to
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Suborder:	Haplorhini
Family:	Hominidae
Genus:	†Australopithecus
Species:	†A. africanus
Binomial name
Australopithecus africanus Dart, 1925

Australopithecus africanus is an extinct (fossil) species of the australopithecines, the first of an early -form species to be classified as hominin (in 1924). Recently it was dated as living between 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago, or in the late Pliocene and early times; it is debated as being a direct ancestor of modern humans.A. africanus was of slender, or gracile, build and has been found only in southern Africa at four sites: Taung (1924), Sterkfontein (1935), Makapansgat (1948) and Gladysvale (1992).

Raymond Dart, then the head of the department of anatomy at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, became interested in fossils found at a limestone quarry at Taung near Kimberley, South Africa in 1924. The most promising of these was a skull of an odd ape-like creature presenting human traits at the eye orbits, teeth, and, most importantly, the hole at the base of the skull over the spinal column (the foramen magnum); its placement indicated a human-like upright posture and implied a high probability that this hominid-to-hominin primate had achieved bipedal, as opposed to quadrupedal locomotion. Dart assigned the specimen the name Australopithecus africanus ("southern ape of Africa"); it was also dubbed "the Taung child".

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