Will drop pants for food

Well, today brought the huge news about Ardi, the oldest human skeleton discovered. The journal Science (read their online post and watch their excellent video here) will release a special edition tomorrow that details Ardi in 11 papers.



As you can tell from the picture, Ardi had really divergent big toes. This is used for grasping, of course, but the animal walked bipedally on the ground when it wasn't living in the trees. So why would it choose to walk upright when its habitat was wooded forests?

Owen Lovejoy, an anatomist at Kent State, proposed the Sex for Food hypothesis. I now begin my (gross and perhaps criminal) oversimplification. Normally, a male ape has long canine teeth for fighting other males to get the ladies. But Ardipithecus, Ardi's genus, had smaller and stubbier teeth. Why? Lovejoy says that earlier males, especially the smaller ones who couldn't compete against their alpha counterparts, elected to bring food to their targeted females. The females, upon seeing this, would thank the males for the unexpected gift, then reward them with sex. (These males remind me of the high school nerds who beat out the jocks by helping out the hot chicks with their homework. If you're a hulking alpha male with so much testosterone you don't know what to do with it, you'd hate that little scrawny dweeb but you'd have to adjust because the girls are starting to like him.)

So how would the males bring the food to the females if they move around on all fours? Exactly, they would have to walk on their hind legs and use their arms to gather the food. This is how bipedalism began, under this hypothesis.

But couldn't the female just collect the food given by the nerd, while copulating with the jock, thereby getting the best of both worlds? Lovejoy states that his hypothesis depends on ovulation that is kept secret from not only the males, but more importantly to the female. (This is not found in the fossil record.) This is what started monogamous relationships, because females would prefer the hard-working and steady provider over the in-your-face guy who humps whatever girl he can get.

I just want this hypothesis to be true so all the scrawny and awkward people like me can finally win in something other than landing a good job.