#HomoNaledi: 13 tweets that show Twitter cares more about laughs than science

By now you’re probably aware of the news that South African scientists have discovered a distant human relative.

Called Homo Naledi, the species appears to shed new light on the origins and diversity of our genus. Consisting of more than 1 550 numbered fossil elements, the discovery is the single largest fossil hominin find yet made on the continent of Africa.

One of the the most interesting things about Homo Naledi is that the species appears to have intentionally deposited bodies of its dead in a remote cave chamber, a behaviour previously thought limited to humans.

Read more: Meet Homo Naledi: the ancestor you never knew you had

“With almost every bone in the body represented multiple times, Homo Naledi is already practically the best-known fossil member of our lineage,” said Lee Berger, research professor in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, who led the two expeditions that discovered and recovered the fossils.

And while most of the world was celebrating the awesome scientific achievement, there were a fair few people on Twitter who used the occasion as a chance to show off their comedy chops.

Not only does the hominin now have its own parody Twitter account (with 168 followers), it inspired a number of one-liners from the digital mob.

Here’s a sample of some of the less awful ones:

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