40 Fun Facts About Lucy (Australopithecus)

Which band's song, played over and over at the Ethiopian dig camp in 1974, gave the Lucy skeleton her name?

The Beatles released Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in 1967, and it played again and again while the expedition celebrated the find. The skeleton's catalogue name is the far drier AL 288-1.

A 2016 University of Texas study of cracks in Lucy's bones argued that she most likely died in which way?

A fall from a tree would explain breaks in her shoulder, ankle and ribs, like those of someone who reaches out to stop a plunge. Her discoverer disagrees, saying bones can break in many ways long after death.

In 2015 scientists concluded that one small vertebra long kept with Lucy's skeleton belonged to which other animal?

A baboon of an extinct species was the match for the bone, which a stream probably washed in beside Lucy's remains. It was too small and too water-worn to match the rest of her spine.

Which American president was invited to touch one of Lucy's bones at a state dinner during a visit to Ethiopia?

Barack Obama was allowed to touch a fossil vertebra, a privilege normally kept for scientists. The skeleton had been carried in secret and under tight security from its museum to the palace.

A NASA probe named after the Lucy fossil launched in 2021 to study Trojan asteroids that share which planet's orbit?

Jupiter shares its path around the Sun with the Trojans, which the mission treats as fossils of planet formation. On the way the probe passed a small asteroid called Dinkinesh, Lucy's Ethiopian name.

Lucy walked upright like a human, yet her brain was about the same size as that of which living primate?

A chimpanzee has a brain of about the same size, which showed that our ancestors stood up long before their brains grew. Until Lucy, many scientists had expected big brains to come first.

Lucy is known in Ethiopia as Dinkinesh, a name later given to an asteroid, which carries what meaning?

You are marvelous is the meaning of Dinkinesh, the name Ethiopians use for the skeleton. Her bones came home to Ethiopia after about nine years of study in America.

Which of Ethiopia's national sports sides is popularly nicknamed Lucy, in honor of the famous fossil skeleton?

The women's football team is popularly known as Lucy, after the fossil. At home the skeleton also goes by an Ethiopian name, Dinkinesh.

Which actress stars in the 2014 film Lucy, whose heroine travels back through time to meet the ancient Lucy?

Scarlett Johansson's Lucy drifts back through time until she and her ancient namesake touch fingertips. Director Luc Besson was intrigued by how small the fossil Lucy's brain was.

Roughly how long ago did Lucy live, a date worked out by argon dating in the early 1990s?

Lucy lived around 3.2 million years ago, and her species lasted some 900,000 years, about three times as long as ours has so far.

Lucy's real bones are kept in a specially built safe at a national museum in which African city?

Addis Ababa is home to the National Museum of Ethiopia, where the bones sit in a laboratory safe rather than a display case. They returned there in 2013 after six years on tour.

Which fossil hunter, later honored with an asteroid's name, spotted the first piece of Lucy in a gully in 1974?

Donald Johanson made the find at 31, and half a century later NASA's Lucy probe flew past the asteroid Donaldjohanson.

Which feature of Lucy's jaw showed scientists that she was a full adult despite standing only about a meter tall?

Erupted wisdom teeth, already slightly worn, marked her as an adult, and the ends of her bones had fused. She was still young, with her skeleton only just mature.

Lucy's bones surfaced in the Afar Triangle, a low, scorching depression that is part of which huge geological feature?

The Great Rift Valley takes in the Afar Triangle, a depression formed where three plates of the Earth's crust meet and pull apart.

Lucy belongs to the genus Australopithecus, a name built from Latin and Greek words that together mean what?

Southern ape is the meaning, chosen because the first fossil of the genus turned up in South Africa in the 1920s. Lucy, found far to the north, kept the label anyway.

A moon found circling the asteroid Dinkinesh by NASA's Lucy probe is named after which young fossil of Lucy's species?

Selam, a three-year-old girl found at Dikika in Ethiopia, is often nicknamed Lucy's baby. In fact she lived about 100,000 years before Lucy did.

In 2025 Lucy's real bones were taken to which European capital for a two-month show at its national museum?

Prague hosted the skeleton at the Czech National Museum, a trip reported as her first exhibition in Europe. A second famous Ethiopian fossil made the journey with her.

Which Texas city's natural science museum organized the six-year American tour of Lucy's real bones that began in 2007?

Houston's Museum of Natural Science arranged the tour, and part of the proceeds went to modernizing museums in Ethiopia. Critics feared the trip would damage the fragile bones.

After the 1974 find, Lucy's fragments were taken to a natural history museum in which US city to be pieced together?

Cleveland's Museum of Natural History, where her discoverer was a curator, rebuilt the skeleton with Ethiopia's permission. She went back to Ethiopia about nine years later.

A year before Lucy, her discoverer found which fossil joint nearby, the oldest evidence then known of upright walking?

A knee turned up in 1973 with its thigh and shin ends meeting at a human-like angle. The expedition came back the next season, when Lucy appeared about 2.5 kilometres away.

Which part of Lucy first caught her discoverer's eye on the slope of a gully that others had already searched?

A forearm bone lying on the slope gave her away, and a piece of skull, a thigh bone, ribs and a jaw soon followed. Other workers had already checked that gully and seen nothing.

What detail of the several hundred fragments convinced the expedition that Lucy's remains all came from one individual?

No part appeared twice among the fragments, so a single skeleton was the simplest reading. One duplicate, even of a tiny scrap, would have disproved the claim.

At which East African site did Mary Leakey uncover a trail of fossil footprints attributed to Lucy's species?

Laetoli preserves about 70 prints pressed into wet ground more than 3.6 million years ago. They show an arched foot, a big toe in line with the rest and heel-first steps much like ours.

Which older Ethiopian skeleton, a 4.4-million-year-old find published in 2009, is more complete than Lucy?

Ardi belongs to Ardipithecus ramidus, an earlier species found in the same region. Her fragile skeleton was first spotted in 1994 and took 15 years to excavate, analyse and publish.

Which fossil skull, described by Raymond Dart in 1925, hinted at upright walking half a century before Lucy?

The Taung Child came from South Africa and seemed to be a small-brained biped, but one skull could not show whether walking or big brains came first. Lucy's skeleton tipped the debate.

Dinkinesh, the Ethiopian name for Lucy, comes from which language, long the working language of Ethiopia's government?

Amharic supplied the name, and until 2020 it was the sole official language of Ethiopia. Four more working languages were then added at the federal level.

The expedition that found Lucy teamed American scientists with a larger group of researchers from which other country?

France supplied the expedition's founder, a geologist who had recognized the promise of the fossil beds, and seven more members. Four Americans joined them besides Lucy's discoverer.

Lucy's age was fixed by dating layers of which material, one of them lying only a meter below her bones?

Volcanic ash holds crystals whose argon content works as a clock. Early attempts failed because datable crystals were scarce, and the method that worked was refined only around 1990.

In 2009 Lucy's real skeleton went on show at a Discovery exposition in which famous New York City location?

Times Square hosted her from June to October 2009, alongside half of a celebrated primate fossil nicknamed Ida. Several leading museums had declined to take the touring bones.

Which fossil site in Ethiopia's Afar, on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 1980, yielded Lucy in 1974?

Hadar was first explored for fossils around 1970 by a geologist who followed a river down from the highlands. Fieldwork there stopped in the winter of 1976 and resumed only in 1990.

The jawbone that officially defines Lucy's species was found by Mary Leakey in 1974 in which other African country?

Tanzania yielded the type specimen, a jaw with nine teeth that every other candidate for the species is compared against. Lucy, though far more famous, is not the reference fossil.

Lucy's species lived in East Africa during which geological epoch?

The Pliocene suited her kind, with a dry season of only about four months in East Africa. The Australopithecus genus as a whole lasted into the early part of the next epoch.

Lucy's gully lies near which Ethiopian river, which never reaches the sea and ends in lakes on the Djibouti border?

The Awash rises about 3,000 metres up in Ethiopia's central highlands and flows past the fossil beds. Its lower course is the stretch that UNESCO lists for its early human remains.

A 2010 study of Lucy's ankle suggested that she, unlike some others of her species, had which foot trait?

Flat feet in Lucy's case meant a naturally low arch, not a disorder. Other members of her species appear to have had arched soles.

Later evidence suggests Lucy's species walked upright in which habitat, not the open savanna once assumed?

Grassy woodlands were home, and her species coped with several habitats and severe swings in climate. Other human relatives shared the landscape at the same time.

Which American prize went to Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, her discoverer's 1981 account of the find?

The National Book Award in Science went to the book in 1982. Written with Maitland Edey, the story helped make the skeleton a household name far beyond fossil circles.

A year after Lucy, bones of at least 13 members of her species turned up together; what is that find nicknamed?

The First Family seems to have died at about the same time, adults and children alike. An early idea that a flash flood killed them has been largely discredited.

Studies of tooth wear suggest that Lucy's species, though able to crack harder foods, lived mainly on what?

Soft, sugary fruit left its mark in microscopic tooth wear, while big, thick teeth let the species turn to hard, brittle foods in lean seasons.

Which geologist recognized the promise of the Afar fossil beds and founded the expedition that later found Lucy?

Maurice Taieb reached the fossil beds around 1970 by following a river down from the highlands. He formed the expedition in 1972 and was present two years later when Lucy turned up.

Which graduate student was surveying beside Lucy's discoverer on the morning her remains were spotted in a gully?

Tom Gray had coaxed his colleague away from paperwork for a spur-of-the-moment survey. The pair spent about two hours on the hot plain before the lucky detour through the gully.