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Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
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Paranthropus boisei
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Paranthropus is an extinct genus of bipedal hominid that is descended from Australopethicus. All species of Paranthropus were bipedal, and many lived during when the Homo genus, also descended from Australopethicus, was prevelant. The behavior of Paranthropus was quite different from that of representatives of the Homo genus, in that it was not as adaptable to its envirenment or as resourceful. Evidence of this exists in the form of its physiology which was specifically tailored to a diet of grubs and plants. This would have made it more reliant on its envirenment than a member of the Homo genus.
Opinions differ as to whether the species aethiopicus, boisei and robustus should be included within the genus Australopithecus, the current consenses in the scientific community is that they should be placed in a distinct genus, Paranthropus, which is believed to have developed from the ancestral Australopithecus line. Up until the last half decade the majority, however, included all the species shown at right in a single genus.