Michel Brunet Michel Brunet is a French palaeontologist and paleoanthropologist. He is currently a Professor of Human Palaeontology at the Collège de France and the University of Poitiers where, in 2001, he made the discovery of hominid fossil remains (the hominoid primate family includes man and his close relatives such as gorillas and chimpanzees); the oldest found in the world, dating back approximately 7 million years. His strong academic background began in 1966 when he gained his Ph.D. in Paleontology from the University of Paris‐Sorbonne. In 1975, he completed his Natural Sciences State doctorate at the University of Poitiers, later becoming a tenured Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology at the same university in 1989. From 1976 onwards, his research focused on apes and hominids, starting with exploration in Afghanistan and Iraq, before turning his attention towards the search for fossils in Western Africa. After his initial studies in the Cameroon, in 1993 he moved on to Chad, where he carried out excavations in the Lake Chad Basin, the Djurab Desert; it is there that he founded the Franco‐Chadian Paleoanthropological Mission (M.P.F.T.) with the aim of investigating the origin, evolution and environment of early hominids. Thanks to Brunet’s expeditions, more than 500 sites of vertebrate fossil findings, matched to Chad’s Mio‐Plio Quaternary were discovered, and nearly 8000 fossils collected. The first major result of these field investigations was in 1995, when Brunet described a new hominid, Australopithecus bahrelghazali, dating back approximately 3.5 million years, the first fossil evidence known west of the Rift Valley, or rather, in West Africa. The discovery of Abel, as he was nicknamed, has since shattered the belief that the earliest hominids were spread solely over Southern and Western Africa, forcing notions on the origin and early history of the human branch to be reviewed. Later, in 2001, an MPFT team led by the French paleoanthropologist made an even more important discovery in Chad, specifically in the Toros Menalla region. It was there that they unearthed a nearly complete cranium, lower jaws and isolated teeth of a hominid dating back approximately 6 or 7 million years, that is to say, the Miocene period. The fossil was nicknamed Toumaï (meaning “hope of life” in the local Goran language), and later classified in Nature by Michel Brunet as: Sahelanthropus tchadensis. According to its discoverer, it belongs to the branch of hominids, very close to the common ancestor of the chimpanzee but in the human line, given that from its teeth "one can deduce that it forms part of the human branch". Despite this, there is no common consensus among paleoanthropologists on whether it is a hominid or an ape. Brunet has conducted subsequent field studies and excavations of fossils of both mammals and primates in Libya and Egypt (in conjunction with the Al‐Fateh University of Tripoli and Cairo University). Among the many positions of responsibility he has held, his role as Director of the Laboratory of Geobiology, Biochronology and Human Paleontology in Poitiers until 2007 certainly stands out. Throughout his career he has received various awards such as: the titles Knight of the Legion of Honour and Officer of the French National Order of Merit, Officer of the National Order of Chad, and Honorary Member of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology of the United States. He has also received, among other distinctions, the Lamothe Award of the Geological Society of France. He has also authored or co‐authored more than 250 scientific publications. Michel Brunet, along with astrobiologist, Paul Davies, will present his ideas on Ancient life and life beyond Earth, in the macro topic: Extending the limits of life.