Who is Lucy the Australopithecus? Google honours 41st anniversary of skeletal discovery

Honouring the important discovery in archaeology, today’s Google doodle showcases the evolution of the human species from ape to the walking man. Google has posted the doodle on its homepage showing the evolution of bipedalism with a simple version of the March of Progress which is the common sketch of human evolution.

“Lucy” was the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton ever found, though her remains are only about 40 percent.

The name Lucy is given to a collection of fossilised bones that once made the hominid skeleton from the Australopithecus afarensis species, who used to live in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago. The ancient skeleton was discovered by a team of archaeologists working in Ethiopia in 1974.

Scientists claim that Lucy was 3.7 feet tall and 29 kgs in weight.

Although the remains of Lucy are presently held in the National Museum in Addis Ababa, not far from where she was found, other members of her species were much better-travelled – animals from the same genus spread throughout Africa, before becoming extinct around 2 million years ago. Lucy’s platsic replica is kept in the public for tourists to observe.

Bipedal movement is a very human quality, and scientists immediately recognised that Lucy could walk after studying the structure of her knees and the shape of her spine. Ethiopians worry on Tuesday that the fragile bones of their world-famous skeleton may not survive a six year USA tour.

Although Lucy had many characteristics of chimpanzees, such as long arms and a protruding belly, the skeleton showed that she primarily walked upright, the earliest example of such a primate. She died as a young but fully grown adult.

Fossil discovery has always been a significant event and when “Lucy” was discovered in 1973 on November 24 a new age began.