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Abel (KT-12/H1) [1] is the name given to the only specimen ever discovered of Australopithecus bahrelghazali . Abel was found in January 1995 in Chad in the Kanem Region by the paleontologist Michel Brunet, [2] who named the fossil "Abel" in memory of his close friend Abel Brillanceau, who had died of malaria in 1989.
Of Abel remains only part of a jaw, which explains the little information discernable concerning its way of life.
The few teeth confirm it to be of the genus Australopithecus : it has a second premolar with a broad and molarized crown, not dissimilar to the Lucy fossil, and as such to the Australopithecus afarensis .[ citation needed ]