Discription

This vegetarian apeman had a big, flat face with a massive jaw. It lived at a time when forests were vanishing from East Africa, creating a shortage of food such as soft fruit.

These hard, gritty foods were more abundant in the open woodland and grasslands that boisei called home.

Paranthropus boisei may have lived in groups organized in harems, in which one male mated with many females. Males were easy to spot amongst a harem of females; they were much more muscular with much bigger faces.

Lantern jaws

Paranthropus boisei developed an enormous jaw with massive chewing muscles and huge back teeth to help him grind down these tough plant foods. By becoming a highly specialised vegetarian, boisei ensured a comfortable life for itself.

The ratios of different types of carbon atoms, or isotopes, in fossils can tell us lots about what a fossil creature ate because different foods have different carbon isotope signatures. Dr Julia Lee-Thorp of the University of Cape Town in South Africa has found that isotopes in boisei's southern African relative, Paranthropus robustus, show that it ate a relatively high proportion of foods with a Carbon-4 (C4) signature.