Richard Leakey - Species Quotes

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We are justified in calling all species of bipedal ape "human."... the adaptation of bipedalism was so loaded with evolutionary potential—freeing the upper limbs to be free to become manipulative implements one day—that its importance should be recognized in our nomenclature. These humans were not like us, but without the bipedal adaptation they couldn't have become us.

Richard Leakey
I think both Louis and I were looking for more or less the same thing, and that is, when did our species, Homo, begin?

Richard Leakey
Jerison argues that we should think of brains as creating a species' version of reality.... As brains enlarged through evolutionary time, more channels of sensory information could be handled more completely, and their input integrated more thoroughly.

Richard Leakey
[Fred] Spoor's observations are truly startling, In all species of the genus Homo, the inner ear structure is indistinguishable from that of modern humans. Similarly, in all species of Australopithecus, the semicircular canals look like those of apes. Does this mean that the australopithecines moved about as apes do—that is, quadrupedally? The structure of the pelvis and lower limbs speaks against this conclusion. So does a remarkable discovery my mother made in 1976: a trail of very humanlike footprints made in a layer of volcanic ash some 3.75 million years ago.

Richard Leakey
Protecting elephants and conserving natural ecosystems remain my personal priorities. But I am not so sure this would be so were I ill, hungry, and living in dispair.... We must somehow find a way to provide for our own species if we are also to preserve others.

Richard Leakey
As a species, we are blessed with a curiosity about the world of nature and our place in it. We want to know — need to know — how we came to be as we are, and what our future is.

Richard Leakey
Homo sapiens is poised to become the greatest catastrophic agent since a giant asteroid collided with the Earth sixty-five million years ago wiping out half the world's species in a geological instant.

Richard Leakey
As every parent knows, children go through an adolescent growth spurt, during which they put on inches at an alarming rate. Humans are unique in this respect: most mammalian species, including apes, progress almost directly from infancy to adulthood.

Richard Leakey