Editor's note: This article is part of a special package written for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of a 3.2 million-year-old A. afarensis fossil (AL 288-1), nicknamed "Lucy."
From a distance, it might have looked like a small child was wending her way through the waving grass along a vast lake. But a closer look would have revealed a strange, in-between creature — a big-eyed imp with a small head and an apelike face who walked upright like a human.
