Editing Kenyanthropus (section)

==Palaeoecology==
[[File:Australopithecus afarensis reconstruction.JPG|thumb|upright|''Kenyanthropus'' was contemporary with ''[[Australopithecus afarensis|A. afarensis]]'' ("[[Lucy (Australopithecus)|Lucy]]" above)]]
From 4.5 to 4 million years ago, Lake Turkana may have swelled to upwards of {{cvt|28000|km2}}, in comparison to today's {{cvt|6400|km2}}; the lake at what is now the [[Koobi Fora]] site possibly sat at minimum {{cvt|36|m}} below the surface. Volcanic hills by Lomekwi pushed basalt into the lake sediments. The lake broke up and from 3.6 to 3.2 million years ago, the region was probably characterised by a series of much smaller lakes, each covering no more than {{cvt|2500|km2}}.<ref>{{cite book|first=F. E.|last=Grine|year=2017|title=Evolutionary History of the Robust Australopithecines|publisher=Routledge|pages=332–333|isbn=978-1-351-52126-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|first=C. S.|last=Feibel|year=2011|title=A Geological History of the Turkana Basin|journal=Evolutionary Anthropology|volume=20|issue=6|pages=206–216|doi=10.1002/evan.20331|pmid=22170690|s2cid=16478971}}</ref> Similarly, the [[bovid]] remains at Lomekwi are suggestive of a wet mosaic environment featuring both grasslands and forests on a lakeside or [[floodplain]]. ''[[Theropithecus brumpti]]'' is the most common monkey at the site as well as the rest of the [[Turkana Basin]] at this time; this species tends to live in more forested and closed environments. At the fossiliferous ''A. afarensis'' [[Hadar, Ethiopia|Hadar]] site in Ethiopia, ''[[Theropithecus darti]]'' is the most common monkey, which tends to prefer drier conditions conducive to wood- or grassland environments. Leakey and colleagues argued this distribution means ''Kenyanthropus'' was living in somewhat more forested environments than more northerly ''A. afarensis''.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last=Leakey|first=Meave G.|author-link=Meave Leakey|display-authors=etal|year=2001|title=New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages|journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]|volume=410|issue=6827|pages=433–440|bibcode=2001Natur.410..433L|doi=10.1038/35068500|pmid=11260704|s2cid=4409453}}</ref>

''Kenyanthropus'', ''A. afarensis'', and ''[[Australopithecus deyiremeda|A. deyiremeda]]'' all coexisted in the same time and region, and, because their anatomy largely diverges in areas relevant to chewing, they may have practised [[niche partitioning]] and foraged for different food items.<ref name=Spoor2015>{{cite journal|last1=Spoor|first1=F.|last2=Leakey|first2=M. G.|author2-link=Meave Leakey|last3=O'Higgins|first3=P.|year=2016|title=Middle Pliocene hominin diversity: ''Australopithecus deyiremeda'' and ''Kenyanthropus platyops''|journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B|volume=371|issue=1698|pmid=27298462|doi=10.1098/rstb.2015.0231|pmc=4920288}}</ref>