If there's one thing that really bugs me it's fussy eaters but a new paper from researchers at Oxford University may have found an example where the ramifications of a restrictive diet were more than just annoying me. Australopithecus bahrelghazali was a form of early hominid that forged west out of the rift valley some 4 million years ago; they settled in what is modern day Chad a long way from any other australopithecine yet found. The land was fertile and there were few predators and this allowed them to evolve into a niche that, when push came to shove a million years later, left them facing extinction in the face.
Although there were plenty of different things available to eat research has shown that the thin enamel of their teeth would have restricted their diet to soft, easily chewable plants like sedges. These are not a very nutritious food, which was fine when times were good, but as the climate changed and as predators moved into the territory they simply couldn't eat enough high quality food to survive the new difficult conditions and that, Science Fans, was the end of Australopithecus bahrelghazali.
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