Scientists reveal mysterious tiny bone that was key to human evolution

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Not much is known about the mysterious lateral fabella – a bone that is found in around 39% of the population but absent in others. He said: “Our study shows that this often-misunderstood bone could have evolved in multiple ways in primates, with humans having a distinct form of evolution that began right at the start of all hominoids. “Using this bone in a new way could have helped early humans, like Australopithecus, go from walking on all fours to walking upright.” open image in gallery A comparison of the back of a human and macaque knee, which shows the medial and lateral fabella on the macaque and lateral fabella of a human Despite decades of research, scientists do not know why some people have the lateral fabella while others don’t. Dr Berthaume said this may be because “over the last 100 years, people are better nourished, and therefore are taller and weigh more, providing the mechanical stimulus for the bone to form.” As part of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dr Berthaume and his colleague Nelly A Fragoso Vargas, of London South Bank University’s Division of Mechanical Engineering, analysed the medical literature on knees involving 93 primate species.