African wild ass descendant. Thus, if one species is recognized, the correct scientific name of the donkey is "E. africanus asinus". The first published name for the African wild ass, "Asinus africanus", Fitzinger, 1858, is a nomen nudum. The name "Equus taeniopus" von Heuglin, 1861 is rejected as indeterminable, as it is based on an animal that cannot be identified and may have been a hybrid between a domestic donkey and a Somali wild ass; the type has not been preserved. The first available name thus becomes "Asinus africanus" von Heuglin & Fitzinger, 1866. A lectotype is designated: a skull of an adult
Australopithecus africanus Australopithecus africanus Australopithecus africanus is an extinct ("fossil") species of the australopithecines, the first of an early ape-form species to be classified as hominin (in 1924). Recently it was dated as living between 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago, or in the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene times; it is debated as being a direct ancestor of modern humans. "A. africanus" was of slender, or gracile, build and has been found only in southern Africa at four sites: Taung (1924), Sterkfontein (1935), Makapansgat (1948) and Gladysvale (1992). Raymond Dart, then the head of the department of anatomy at the University