Michel Brunet (paleontologist)

A turning point in Brunet's career was when he heard that paleoanthropologist David Pilbeam was searching for fossil apes in Pakistan and the ancestors of the hominids.

This spurred Brunet to form with his colleague Emile Heintz a team with the idea of also searching for extinct apes across the border from Pakistan in Afghanistan.

A new opportunity presented itself to Brunet when the government of Chad gave him the permission to conduct researches in the Djurab Desert, that due to the Chadian Civil War had long been closed to foreigners.

[3] Brunet has argued that further excavations have uncovered additional remains which further confirm that Sahelanthropus was a hominid, though his conclusions with these newer findings are also debated by some scientists.

In a recent paper, Roberto Macchiarelli and colleagues showed this partial left femur (TM 266-01-063) that was recovered at the same location of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, is most probably belongs to this hominin.