An ancient relative of humans dubbed 'Nutcracker Man' because of his powerful jaws and huge teeth may have actually preferred to eat grass, say scientists.
The hominid, known as Paranthropus boisei, ranged across the African landscape more than one million years ago and lived side-by-side with direct ancestors of humans.
Professor Matt Sponheimer said it was long assumed Paranthropus boisei favoured nuts, seeds and hard fruit because of its powerful jaw muscles and the biggest and flattest molars of any known hominid in the anthropological record.
However, he said in recent years study of the wear marks of teeth from Nutcracker Man by other research teams has indicated it was likely eating items like soft fruit and grasses.
That evidence, combined with the new study that measured the carbon isotopes embedded in fossil teeth to infer diet, indicates the rugged jaw and large, flat tooth structure may have been just the ticket for Nutcracker Man to mow down and swallow huge amounts of grasses or sedges at a single sitting.
he smoked grass but I never saw him eat the stuff. we bailed a ton of hay every yr and I thought it was for the cattle
