Question

what are the differences between Australopithecus and Neanderthalensis

Answer 1

Explanation:

Neanderthals is a kind of human that lived as a distinguished species that lived in Eurasia between 350,000 and 40,000 years ago. ... In terms of family trees, australopithecus is (very likely) ancestral to both neanderthals and (African) homo sapiens

Answer 2

Answer:

Australopithecus is name of the group of apes that (very likely) included an ancestor of humans that lived in sub-Saharan Africa between 4.1 and 1.8 million years ago.

Neanderthals is a kind of human that lived as a distinguished species that lived in Eurasia between 350,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Morphologically, australopithecus still had thick body hair like an ape (though some anthropologists take a different point of view, due to the recent discoveries about human lice evolution, I believe their explanation to be non-parsimonious), was roughly the size of a chimpanzee with the same proportions (long arms, short legs, 350cc brain, etc), and in most ways appears like a chimpanzee. The main difference is that it walked erect, had a forward facing big toe (like a human), (likely all or most subspecies) had an S-shaped backbone, its face was slightly flatter, and the canines in males were much smaller.

Neanderthals, basically, look like modern humans, except they are somewhat shorter, have much larger noses, flatter and slightly larger heads, larger brows, weaker chins, a conically shaped ribcage, and are extremely muscular. As a very crude approximation you could think of Ron Perlman’s head on top of Sylvester Stallone’s body, except with a very weak chin and a bigger nose. But I don’t know how you are supposed to imagine the flared chest; that shape would be unlike any existing modern human.

So comparing directly with australopithecus, neanderthals are taller with longer and thicker legs and shorter arms (by proportion) with stunted hair, a much larger head, broader shoulders, less dimorphism between males and females, and have much larger noses.

In terms of family trees, australopithecus is (very likely) ancestral to both neanderthals and (African) homo sapiens. Neanderthals are (partially) ancestral to modern humans and have a shared ancestor with African homo sapiens dated to between 500,000 and 700,000 years ago.