Australopithecus bahrelghazali

…assigned to a new species, Au. bahrelghazali. Most of its anatomical features are identical to those of Au. afarensis, however. The discovery of Au. bahrelghazali extends the geographic range of Australopithecus some 2,500 km (1,500 miles) west of Africa’s Great Rift Valley (see East African Rift System).

A. bahrelghazali (3.5–3.0 mya) of central Chad and Kenyanthropus platyops (3.5 mya) from northern Kenya are represented solely by teeth and by skull and jaw fragments from which positional behaviour cannot be inferred.

… the northernmost and westernmost species, Au. bahrelghazali, appears to have lived in a mosaic of open and wooded biomes near a river. Mammalian fossils from Lomekwi, northern Kenya, indicate that Kenyanthropus platyops inhabited a relatively well-watered area of forest or closed woodland or the forest edge between them. The habitat…

hominins of eastern Africa, A. bahrelghazali of central Africa, and A. africanus of southern Africa. A. afarensis in turn may be ancestral to P. aethiopicus, which begat P. boisei in eastern Africa and P. robustus in southern Africa.

…an entirely new species named Australopithecus bahrelghazali, which refers to the Baḥr el-Ghazāl region, where Koro Toro is located.