Chapter 18, Problem 13STP

Summary Introduction

To determine:

Evolution of bipedalism helped to survive hominoids ins African environment.

Introduction:

Bipedalism can be described as the ability of the animals to walk on their hind limbs. Humans evolution shows a sign of bipedalism, ancestors of humans belonging to homo genus evolved bipedalism many years ago.

Explanation of Solution

In the drier African environment, the smaller trees and grasses were less. The decrease in the grass and short trees resulted in a lack of food. As a result, the animals begin to die with hunger. Due to decrease in number of other species hunting of hominoids was increased by other big predators.

Evolution of bipedalism allowed hominoids to reach the height of the tall trees. This aided in compensating for decreasing food resources. Also, the bipedalism increases the height of vision and hominoids were now able to see predators from far away that helped in reducing chance of being hunted.