Portrait of Richard Leakey (1944-) palaeoanthropologist, holding a complete hominid skull of Australopithecus robustus, which he personally found in August 1969 at East Turkana, Kenya. The skull was dated at around 1.6 million years old. A. robustus is thought to have inhabited much of southern and eastern Africa from about 2.2 until 1.2 (?) million years ago. The species was vegetarian as evidenced by the heavy and specialised dental equipment. Leakey, son of Louis and Mary Leakey, was head of the East Turkana Research Project, where major homind fossil finds were made during the 1970s.