In eastern Africa, the first known australopith appears in the fossil record at 4.1 million years ago as Australopithecus anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995).

What did the Australopithecus evolve from?

Evolutionary Tree Information:

This species may be a direct descendant of Au. anamensis and may be ancestral to later species of Paranthropus, Australopithecus, and Homo.

Why did Australopithecus become extinct?

All the australopithids went extinct by about 1 million years ago, about 3 million years after they first appeared. Habitats may have vanished as a result of global climate cooling -- or the australopithids may have been pressed to extinction by the growing populations of early humans.