- « ""You'd be surprised how few Hominids started the Human-race" »
- — Helen Cutter thinks humanity breeds like rabbits[src]
Australopithecus was an early hominid species from the Pliocene, which was directly ancestral to humanity.
Characteristics[]
Australopithecus resembled large, bipedal apes with brown hair coating most of their bodies except for the hand, feet and faces. They shared multiple traits with modern apes and with the humans descended from them, particularly a very humanlike, bipedal walking stance.
Australopithecus also seemed to be highly intelligent, judging from how a dying Australopithecus tried to reach out with a hand towards Danny upon seeing the human. Australopithecus apparently lived close together in very large numbers, consisting of a dozen members if not dozens.
Incursions and encounters[]
Episode 3.10[]
Helen Cutter, in an attempt to avert the Future Predators' future creation and change the future, travelled to Site 333 in the Pliocene on a mission to kill the early Australopithecus so that Humanity would not evolve to create the Predators in the first place.
A large group of Australopithecus in the Pliocene.
Helen found a group of thirteen Australopithecus and killed them by poisoning the river they drank from. Danny Quinn later found the Australopithecus' bodies, and comforted one of them as it died. Later, after Helen's death, Danny found a large group of more Australopithecus in the Pliocene, ensuring humanity's survival.
Real life[]
Australopithecus (name menaing "southern ape") was a hominid genus which lived from approximately 4 to 2 million years ago, apparently evolving in eastern Africa before spreading throughout the continent. Most Australopithecus shared many traits with modern primates, usually standing at 1.3 metres tall, and possessing a brain roughly 35% the size of a human's. Australopithecus was originally discovered in 1924.
Trivia[]
- According to the official Primeval website, the mass killing of the group of Austrailopithecus by Helen Cutter was already in the fossil record.
- On the Primeval website, Australopithecus is simply referred to as Homonid.
- The Australopithecus in Primeval are larger than the real animal, which was somewhat shorter than a human, but when the ones in the show are seen dead by Danny Quinn, they look like they should be nearly the same height.