- Who
- Paranthropus boisei
- Where
- Not Applicable ()
Among mammals, humans have quite small teeth, considering our body size. Our back teeth (the molars) are especially diminished in size. However, some earlier human and near-human relatives had molars about twice as big as ours. For example, Paranthropus boisei (a species that lived in East Africa about 2 million years ago and thought to have been largely vegetarian) had huge molars averaging about 756 mm2 (1.17 sq in) in chewing surface area for all three molar teeth together. In comparison, the equivalent figure for modern humans (Homo sapiens) is 334 mm2 (0.52 sq in).
The teeth of one Paranthropus skull found in Tanzania in 1959 were so large that it was nicknamed "Nutcracker Man"!
Two later well-documented human species H. habilis and H. erectus had grinding teeth surface areas of 478 mm2 (0.74 sq in) and 377 mm2 (0.58 sq in), respectively.
