Creature may be ‘missing link’ to Homo sapiens

A TWO-million-year-old creature that combined striking features of apes and humans could be the best candidate yet for the fabled “missing link”, research suggests.

Australopithecus sediba, discovered in a South African cave in 2009, had a dextrous hand that might have fashioned tools but may still have been used to climb trees.

Its brain was small — the size of a grapefruit — but shaped more like that of a human than a chimpanzee.