A piece in the monkey puzzle: by Nature Video

A new primate fossil from Saudi Arabia could bring us one step closer to dating the divergence between apes (including humans) and Old World monkeys. Read the original research at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09094

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• monkey
• primate
• ape
• apes
• hominoid
• hominoids
• old world monkeys
• fossil
• Saudi Arabia
• Nature
• NPG
• Nature Video
• monkey puzzle
• University of Michigan

[omegastar19]

@goodhorsehymn That is because the concept of a missing link is inherently flawed. Saying "Missing link" makes it sound as if there was a fixed chain of species that lived in a fixed period and who evolved at a precise time, suddenly changing into another species.

Rather, imagine it as a whole species - probably ranging to 100,000's or millions of individuals, of which only a tiny percentage has been preserved, showing a gradual, fluid change over millions of years.

[omegastar19]

@omegastar19 If all those individual remains had been preserved, you would get an extremely precise picture of tiny changes accumulating over time. But because only a tiny % of the remains have been preserved, you get a very scattered view.

[happinesson]

more bones to dig..more apes to discovery..awesome research

[agapitoflores001]

This is a proof. It might be the missing link in Darwin's theory of evolution.

[Tapiola2007]

@omegastar19 Now we're moving into a discussion I know very little about. I've always wondered how fossil finds get designated as one species or another. Although I accept that paleantologists know what they're doing when it comes to identifying fossil finds and classifying them, I'm always stunned at the degree of certainty they have over these discoveries, given the claims that are made.

[omegastar19]

@Tapiola2007 Indeed. The problem even goes so far as to include all designations of species. Since every fossil we find shows life in transition, dividing fossils into seperate species is arbitrary because species are not set in stone and are always changing.

Ofcourse, from a practical point of view, its necesarry that we divide the fossils we find into seperate species.

[Tapiola2007]

@omegastar19 Agreed. Moreover, I don't think it's helpful when scientists use the term "missing link". All fossils are transitional forms. Every generation is in transition. It's simply because the fossil record is so patchy for certain species (not all) that it seems attractive to describe an important find as the missing link. Unfortunately, Creatards and the rest who don't understand or don't want to understand evolution insist that the missing link looks like something it can never be.

[Nomoreidsleft]

@gaboon01 True,Osama would not be caught dead in Saudi Arabia.