It’s the 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy', hominin skeleton first discovered in 1974. Google celebrated the discovery of human ancestor with an animated doodle, which showed an ape-like ancestor. The discovery was an important one as it gave best clues to scientists about ancestors of human.

In 1972, Maurice Taieb from National Center for Scientific Research of France and Donald Carl Johanson from Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History discovered more than two million years old stone tools in the Afar region of Ethiopia. About two years after the first discovery, the researchers found something that changed our thinking about human ancestors.

Taieb and Johanson discovered a collection of fossilized remnants of a young female Australopithecus. After analysis, it was found that the 20-year-old lived in Ethiopia some 3.2 million years ago. The discovery of remains was remarkably complete as the researchers unearthed approximately 40% of the female’s skeleton.

Shortly after unearthing the skeleton, it was announced that Lucy was a significant discovery with scientists saying the ancient human species belonged to a previously unknown species. She was named Lucy after song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. As per the researchers, Lucy was a small creature.

“Lucy wasn’t much more than a meter tall, with a brain capacity about a third that of modern man”, the researchers said. The remnants of Lucy gave researchers best clues yet about Australopithecus and revealed that the species had short legs.