Question: Paranthropus or Australopithecus?

[Johonebesus]

When I was in school I was taught that the genus for "Lucy" and related species was Australopithecus, i.e., Australopithecus robustus. In later readings I encountered Paranthropus, but was told that it was an old, outdated term. Lately however I have seen Paranthropus robustus several times, and a recent source gave Australopithecus as a taxon called a "tribe" (which I have never encountered before). So, has there been some recent upheaval in the classification of Hominids?

[Superman]

I've always known Lucy to be representative of Australopithecus afarensis.

[Anguirus]

Yeah, I'm with Supes. Lucy's certainly not robustus.

[Androsphinx]

From wikipedia:

Opinions differ as to whether the species P. aethiopicus, P. boisei and P. robustus should be included within the genus Australopithecus, due to the unknown last common ancestor. The emergence of the robusts could be either a display of divergent or convergent evolution. There is currently no consensus in the scientific community as to whether P. aethiopicus, P. boisei and P. robustus should be placed into a distinct genus, Paranthropus, which is believed to have developed from the ancestral Australopithecus line. Up until the last half-decade, the majority of the scientific community included all the species of both Australopithecus and Paranthropus in a single genus. Currently, both taxonomic systems are used and accepted in the scientific community. On Wikipedia, the genus Paranthropus is used for all articles which mention the species P. aethiopicus, P. boisei and P. robustus.

So there's a classification turf war ongoing.

[Johonebesus]

I used "Lucy" as a name that required neither Astralopithicus nor Paranthropus, not to refer specifically to robustus. That's why I said "related species."


So there is an upheaval, and my education was not completely screwed up, good.

[Anguirus]

Sorry, I missed that bit.