Kenyanthropus platyops was a discovery everyone was shocked by. The unique traits this species posessed had changed everything. To start off, this species name translates to "flat-face" in honor of the species having a remarkably distinct trait that had not truly been seen. Flat-face man was discovered in Kenya and more specifically it was found by Lomekwi River and it dates to about 3.5 million years ago

The Kenyanthropus platyops skull was discovered by Justus Erus who was working for Meave Leakey at the time and it was located at the site of Lomekwi on the western side of Lake Turkana in 1998-1999. Research suggets that the environment during this time was mainly woodlands with patches of grassland.  

Kenyanthropus platyops had many defining features. To start, the morphology of their maxilla was pretty flat and it showcases less prognathism compared to other early hominins. They also had a more anteriorly placed zygomatic process which is another unique trait that made them stand out. Lastly, they had relatively small teeth especially with their molars which could mean they had different diets than other earlier hominins.

The  skull that was found was relatively distorted and in two pieces which made it hard for people to decide what hominin this belonged to.  While sex does remain unknown, there are certain traits that had archaeologists convinced that this was a whole separate genus. These included a small brain and an ear canal, as well as its famous flat-face, high zygomatics, and small but thick enameled teeth.

While some may think that this new discovery made our evolutionary tree easier to determine, it was actually quite the opposite. The discovery of Kenyanthropus platyops further complicated the tree because we can't just simply add a new branch, instead we have to rethink our presumptions because we now know with this new genus that hominins were diversifying by 3.5 million years and not 2.5 million years. The evolutionary tree to the right was composed by comparing the features each hominin had but we still do not know the what the real tree would look like.