KLI senior postdoc fellow Anne Le Maître gave an invited presentation to the general public at the Natural History Museum Vienna on 21 January 2026, on the topic "Waren unsere Vorfahren Zweibeiner? Was wir aus dem Innenohr lernen können" [translated as: "Were our ancestors bipedal? What we learn from the inner ear"]. In her presentation, Anne explained how the morphology of the bony part of the inner ear, which is preserved in the fossil record, can be used to infer the lifestyle and locomotor behaviour of extinct species, based on comparisons with living species. Reconstructing the locomotion of fossil species is particularly relevant to studying and understanding human evolution, as obligatory bipedalism is a defining feature of our species and our closest relatives.

This presentation was part of a lecture series co-organised by the Anthropological Society of Vienna (Anthropologische Gesellschaft in Wien [http://www.ag-wien.org/]) and the Friends of the Natural History Museum in Vienna (Freunde des Naturhistorischen Museums und Naturhistorisches Museum Wien [https://freunde.nhm-wien.ac.at/]).

More information (in German) : https://freunde.nhm-wien.ac.at/aktivitaeten/vortraege/item/363-vorfahren-zweibeiner