Homo habilis

Homo habilis

Uncredited · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
HomoPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Hominidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Hominidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 1.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 774 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesPleistocene — about 18 of 18 occurrencesPleistocene2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.4–2.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.3–2.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.2–2.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.1–2.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.1–2.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.0–1.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.9–1.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.0–929 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences929 ka–835 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences835 ka–742 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.08 Mya274 ka

18 occurrences of Homo habilis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

18 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Koobi Fora — 4.07°N, 36.37°EKoobi Fora — 3.87°N, 36.37°EKoobi Fora — 4.06°N, 36.33°EKoobi Fora — 4.18°N, 36.42°EKoobi Fora — 4.27°N, 36.29°EShungura — 5.04°N, 36.02°EShungura — 5.07°N, 36.03°EShungura — 5.09°N, 36.06°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.34°EOlduvai — 2.98°S, 35.37°E

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The named rock units Homo habilis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Homo habilis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Homo habilis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

171 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Homo habilis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 18 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Homo habilis

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itHomo through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leakey et al. 1964