australopithecines

The term australopithecines refers generally to all species in the related genera of Australopithecus and Paranthropus; and it is typically intended to include members of Kenyanthropus. Ardipithecus. and Praeanthropus. Further, all these related species are now collectively classified by some as a subtribe, Australopithecina, of the Hominini tribe. They are the extinct, close relatives of humans and, with the extant genus Homo, comprise the human clade. Members of the human clade, that is, the Hominini after the split from the chimpanzees, are now called hominins (cf. Hominidae; terms "hominids" and hominins).