Adipithecus ramidus was first discovered in 1992 by Tim White and members of an excavation team (Boisserie, 2010). They were working at the Aramis site in the Middle Awash region in Ethiopia. In total over 150,00 plant and animal fossils were recovered, including 110 from Adipithecus ramidus (White et al., 2009a). While a large amount of fossils were uncovered their poor condition delayed the release of any findings. The remains were very fragile, dry and disintegrated upon touch but after years of work a comprehensive report was published in 2009 (Boisserie, 2010). 

There are important implications that result from Adipithecus ramidus, mainly concerning her feet! Adipithecus ramidus's foot combines charateristics from what can be observed in both modern humans and apes. Adipithecus ramidus has a flexible, opposable big toe however the rest of her foot is more stiff and modeled for bipedalism (Prang, 2019). This is important because it means that Adipithecus ramidus was not a knuckle walker, and modern humans did not evolve from a knuckle walking ancestor (Lovejoy, 2009).

Adipithecus ramidus, while giving us some answers about early human evolution leaves us with many questions. Many researchers argue that Adipithecus ramidus evolved from Adipithecus kadabba, however this has not be definitively proven (White et al., 2009b). There are also many questions about what happened to A after they died out. If A evolved into another hominin there has yet to be any research published about it.