Research carried out in the years since Wood and Brace's work has demonstrated that Homo habilis was indeed no different from Australopithecus. The skull and skeletal fossil OH62 found by Tim White showed that this species had a small cranial capacity, as well as long arms and short legs, which enabled them to climb trees just like modern apes do.
The detailed analyses conducted by American anthropologist Holly Smith in 1994 indicated that Homo habilis was not Homo, in other words, human, at all, but rather unequivocally an ape. Speaking of the analyses she made on the teeth of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, Smith stated the following;
Restricting analysis of fossils to specimens satisfying these criteria, patterns of dental development of gracile australopithecines and Homo Habilis remain classified with African apes. Those of Homo erectus and Neanderthals are classified with humans.189
Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld also studied a Homo habilis specimen, namely Stw 53, and found out that "Stw 53 relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." This meant that the H. habilis specimen was even more ape-like than the Australopithecus species. Thus they concluded that "Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus."191
This finding yielded two important results:
1. Fossils referred to as Homo habilis did not actually belong to the genus Homo, i.e., humans, but to that of Australopithecus, i.e., apes.
2. Both Homo habilis and Australopithecus were creatures that walked stooped forward-that is to say, they had the skeleton of an ape. They have no relation whatsoever to man