A recent study of the "Taung Child," a 300 million-year old hominin once believed to be a transitional form between apes and modern humans, reveals it might not have been human.

It showed that the species might not have had the same postnatal brain growth seen in modern human beings. The findings go against previously held beliefs about the Taung child or Australopithecus africanus.

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A team of experts studied the Taung child remains through an in silico dissection using high-resolution computed tomography in order to prove or disprove speculations about the Taung Child's direct relation to human beings.

Using the Wits University Microfocus X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) facility, researchers scanned the remains and found the Taung Child did not share the same brain development in the prefrontal region as modern infants and toddlers.

The remains of the Taung Child are vital to the study of brain evolution in hominins. A number of scientists previously hypothesized the Taung Child exhibited cranial adaptations also found in human babies.

A 2012 study suggested the fossil exhibited various features found in modern human babies, including the metopic suture, or the so-called "soft spot" on a baby's head.

What the 2013 study found, however, was that the Taung child's fossil was misdiagnosed and seems to lack features that would suggest the child's brain grew well into infancy like modern human babies' brains do.

This likely indicates postnatal brain growth may have only been present when the Homo species arose around 2.5 million years ago.

"For close to 15 years, it was the only known australopithecine. One could argue that it represented even more than this, being the first indication of the apelike nature of our ancestors," said Dr. Kristian Carlson, Senior Researcher from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Because of the discovery, Carlson and his team suggest that other scientists use the same scanning technology they utilized in order to re-examine other hominin remains.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by Dr. Carlson; Douglas Broadfield from Florida Atlantic University and Ralph Holloway from Columbia University.

The Taung child or Taung baby was discovered in 1924 in a quarry in Taung, South Africa.