Beginning in the late Miocene and into the early Pliocene, upright walking tendencies began to develop
among the hominin tribe. Upright walking tendencies slowly transformed into obligate bipedalism during
the pliocene within the hominin lineage. This shift in locomotor strategy is notably marked by the gradual
change in arm to leg ratio that we see when comparing early and later hominins. Early hominins have
short legs and very long arms while later hominins have longer legs and short arms.
Your task for this activity will be to compare and contrast the locomotor strategies of the following two
hominin genera: Ardipithecus and Australopithecus. You will accomplish this by answering the following
questions.