Editing Sahelanthropus (section)

===Discovery===
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| caption1  = Location of discovery
| image2    = Sahelanthropus tchadensis - TM 266 location.jpg
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Four employees of the Centre National d'Appui à la Recherche (CNAR, National Research Support Center) of the Ministry of Higher Education of the Republic of Chad, three Chadians (Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye,<ref name="researchgate/2007191460">{{cite web |title=Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye |url=https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Ahounta-Djimdoumalbaye-2007191460 |website=[[ResearchGate]] |access-date=23 January 2023}}</ref> Fanoné Gongdibé and Mahamat Adoum) and one French (Alain Beauvilain<ref name="researchgate/9991597">{{cite web |title=Alain Beauvilain |url=https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Alain-Beauvilain-9991597 |website=[[ResearchGate]]}}</ref>) collected and identified the first remains in the Toros-Menalla area (TM 266 [[locality (geology)|locality]]) in the [[Djurab Desert]] of northern Chad, July 19, 2001. By the time [[Michel Brunet (paleontologist)|Michel Brunet]] and colleagues formally described the remains in 2002, a total of six specimens had been recovered: a nearly complete but heavily deformed skull, a fragment of the midline of the jaw with the [[tooth socket]]s for an [[incisor]] and [[canine tooth|canine]], a right third [[molar (tooth)|molar]], a right first incisor, a right jawbone with the last [[premolar]] to last molar, and a right canine. With the skull as the [[holotype specimen]], they were grouped into a new [[genus]] and [[species]] as ''Sahelanthropus tchadensis'', the genus name referring to the [[Sahel]], and the species name to Chad. These, along with ''[[Australopithecus bahrelghazali]]'', were the first discoveries of any fossil African [[great ape]] (outside the genus ''[[Homo]]'') made beyond eastern and southern Africa.<ref name=Brunet2002/> By 2005, a third premolar was recovered from the TM 266 locality, a lower jaw missing the region behind the second molar from the TM 292 locality, and a lower left jaw preserving the sockets for premolars and molars from the TM 247 locality.<ref name="Brunet2005">{{cite journal |last1=Brunet |first1=M. |author-link=Michel Brunet (paleontologist) |last2=Guy |first2=F. |last3=Pilbeam |first3=D. |author-link3=David Pilbeam |last4=Lieberman |first4=D. E. |last5=Likius |first5=A. |last6=Mackaye |first6=H. T. |last7=Ponce |last8=de Leon |first8=M. S. |last9=Zollikofer |first9=C. P. E. |last10=Vignaud |first10=P. |year=2005 |title=New material of the earliest hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad |url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3716603/Brunet%20et%20al.pdf |journal=Nature |volume=434 |issue=7034 |pages=752–755 |bibcode=2005Natur.434..752B |doi=10.1038/nature03392 |pmid=15815627 |s2cid=3726177}}</ref>

The skull was nicknamed Toumaï by the then-president of the Republic of Chad, [[Idriss Déby]], not only because it designates in the local [[Daza language]] meaning "hope of life", given to infants born just before the dry season and who, therefore, have fairly limited chances of survival, but also to celebrate the memory of one of his comrades-in-arms, living in the north of the country where the fossil was discovered, and killed fighting to overthrow President [[Hissène Habré]] supported by France.<ref>[http://www.sangonet.com/FichHistoire/ToumaiiTchad7millA02.html The skull discovered in Chad bears the name of a comrade of the Chadian president who died in combat] Dispatch of ''Associated Press'', Denver, July 11, 2002.</ref> Toumaï also became a source of national pride, and Brunet announced the discovery before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a television audience in the capital of [[N'Djamena]], "''l'ancêtre de l'humanité est Tchadien...Le berceau de l'humanité se trouve au Tchad. Toumaï est votre ancêtre''" ("The ancestor of humanity is Chadian...The cradle of humanity is in Chad. Toumaï is your ancestor.").<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.sangonet.com/FichHistoire/ToumaiiTchad7millA02.html |title=Sahelanthropus tchadensis : Découverte de Toumaï, un "Tchadien" de 7 millions d'années |access-date=2020-01-01}}</ref><ref>[https://sites.google.com/view/tchadberceaudelhumanite/valorisation-des-recherches-pal%C3%A9ontologiques N'Djamena, Conference of July 10, 2002], at 1h 0' 30"</ref>

Toumaï had been found with a femur, but this was stored with animal bones and shipped to the [[University of Poitiers]] in 2003, where it was stumbled upon by graduate student Aude Bergeret the next year. She took the bone to the head of the Department of Geosciences, Roberto Macchiarelli, who considered it to be inconsistent with [[biped]]alism contra what Brunet ''et al.'' had earlier stated in their description analysing only the distorted skull. This was conspicuous because Brunet and his team had already explicitly stated Toumaï was associated with no limb bones, which could have proven or disproven their conclusions of locomotion. Because Brunet had declined to comment on the subject, Macchiarelli and Bergeret petitioned to present their preliminary findings during an annual conference organised by the [[Society of Anthropology of Paris|Anthropological Society of Paris]], which would be held at Poitiers that year. This was rejected as they had not formally published their findings yet.<ref name=Callaway>{{cite journal|last=Callaway |first=Ewen|url= https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-018-00972-z/d41586-018-00972-z.pdf |title=Femur findings remain a secret |journal=Nature|date= 25 January 2018 |volume=553 |issue=7689|pages=391–92|doi=10.1038/d41586-018-00972-z |bibcode=2018Natur.553..391C |pmid=29368713|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Constans N. 1">{{cite web |last=Constans |first=Nicolas |date=2018-01-23 |title=L'histoire du Fémur de Toumaï |trans-title=The history of Toumai's thighbone |url=https://nicolas-constans.net/2018-01-23-lhistoire-du-femur-de-toumai/ |access-date=2020-01-01 |language=fr}}</ref> They were able to publish a full description in 2020, and concluded ''Sahelanthropus'' was not bipedal.<ref name="JHE-20201201"/>

In 2022, French primatologist Franck Guy and colleagues reported that a hominin left femur (TM 266-01-063), a right (TM 266-01-358), and a left (TM 266-01-050) [[ulna]] (forearm bone) were also discovered at the site in 2001, but were excluded originally from ''Sahelanthropus'' because they could not be reliably associated with the skull. They decided to include it because ''Sahelanthropus'' is the only hominin known from the site, and they concluded that the material is consistent with obligate bipedalism, the earliest evidence of such.<ref name="Daver Guy Mackaye Likius 2022"/> In 2023, Meyer and colleagues suggested that its phylogenetic position and its status as a hominin still remain equivocal.<ref name=M23>{{Cite journal |last1=Meyer |first1=M. R. |last2=Jung |first2=J. P. |last3=Spear |first3=J. K. |last4=Araiza |first4=I. Fx. |last5=Galway-Witham |first5=J. |last6=Williams |first6=S. A. |title=Knuckle-walking in ''Sahelanthropus''? Locomotor inferences from the ulnae of fossil hominins and other hominoids |year=2023 |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |volume=179 |at=103355 |doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103355 |pmid=37003245 |bibcode=2023JHumE.17903355M |s2cid=257874795 }}</ref>

All ''Sahelanthropus'' specimens, representing six to nine different adults, have been recovered within the {{cvt|0.73|km2}} area.<ref name="JHE-20201201">{{cite journal |author=Macchiarelli |first1=Roberto |last2=Bergeret-Medina |first2=Aude |last3=Marchi |first3=Damiano |last4=Wood |first4=Bernard |year=2020 |title=Nature and relationships of ''Sahelanthropus tchadensis'' |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |volume=149 |page=102898 |doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102898 |pmid=33142154 |s2cid=226249337 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2020JHumE.14902898M |hdl-access=free |hdl=11568/1060874}}</ref>