Their habitat appears to have been swampy, and not savannah or forest. The fossils are sufficient to indicate that there was a lumbar curve, implying some adaptation to upright walking, in distinction to otherwise similar species known from the same period. Since the fossils have been dated to about 8 million years ago, this represents an unusually early appearance of upright posture.

Some have suggested this requires a revision of the current consensus on the timing of bipedality in human developmental history, but there is little agreement on this point among paleontologists. For the moment, this species is a considerable anomaly. and may represent an independent development of bipedality other than that which led to humans, and which cam to a dead end some time later. More fossil discoveries may help settle this and other questions.