MISSING LINK FOUND - New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

MISSING LINK FOUND - New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs

May 19, 2009—Meet "Ida," the small "missing link" found in Germany that's created a big media splash and will likely continue to make waves among those who study human origins.

In a new book, documentary, and promotional Web site, paleontologist Jorn Hurum, who led the team that analyzed the 47-million-year-old fossil seen above, suggests Ida is a critical missing-link species in primate evolution (interactive guide to human evolution from National Geographic magazine).

(Among the team members was University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich, a member of the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)

The fossil, he says, bridges the evolutionary split between higher primates such as monkeys, apes, and humans and their more distant relatives such as lemurs.

"This is the first link to all humans," Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, said in a statement. Ida represents "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor."

Ida, properly known as Darwinius masillae, has a unique anatomy. The lemur-like skeleton features primate-like characteristics, including grasping hands, opposable thumbs, clawless digits with nails, and relatively short limbs.

"This specimen looks like a really early fossil monkey that belongs to the group that includes us," said Brian Richmond, a biological anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study, published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

But there's a big gap in the fossil record from this time period, Richmond noted. Researchers are unsure when and where the primate group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans split from the other group of primates that includes lemurs.

"[Ida] is one of the important branching points on the evolutionary tree," Richmond said, "but it's not the only branching point."

At least one aspect of Ida is unquestionably unique: her incredible preservation, unheard of in specimens from the Eocene era, when early primates underwent a period of rapid evolution. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

"From this time period there are very few fossils, and they tend to be an isolated tooth here or maybe a tailbone there," Richmond explained. "So you can't say a whole lot of what that [type of fossil] represents in terms of evolutionary history or biology."

In Ida's case, scientists were able to examine fossil evidence of fur and soft tissue and even picked through the remains of her last meal: fruits, seeds, and leaves.

What's more, the newly described "missing link" was found in Germany's Messel Pit. Ida's European origins are intriguing, Richmond said, because they could suggest—contrary to common assumptions—that the continent was an important area for primate evolution.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090519-missing-link-found.html

WILSONMIX

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News & Politics

[iamabsFTW]

samson, what the hell are you on about?!?!?! no link??? erm, where we come from then. we just appear?

[Lordluigibro]

The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known.

[happinesson]

Lucy, Andy and now Ida...their remains will forever be part of our long haunt for our ancestors..

[daniloorbolato]

The missing link is missing. How ironic.

[LoricaLady]

@Lordluigibro Cont. Real science says you need something observable to make a scientific claim - like Ida's offspring being significantly different from her, like any evidence that life can come from inorganic matter (true science, the LAW of biogenesis, says it doesn't), like something besides millions & tons of fossils showing only 100% scales, feathers, teeth etc. etc. etc. & nothing in between. Evolution is built on dataless speculation presented as fact, i.e. faith. That's religion.

[LoricaLady]

@Lordluigibro Yes,let's dissent from religion, the religion of evo. There is 0 evidence Ida produced any progeny significantly different from herself. Just faith. 0 evidence her conveniently invisible offspring produced anything that led to us. 0 evidence that "missing links" aren't never existed links. Just faith. 0 evidence for the primal pond found in children's library books about evo. Just faith. 0 evidence that scales turned into feathers or fish teeth. Just faith.

Cont.

[sugarhitman]

HEHE. Frankfurt was recently involved in a huge Neanderthal Skull hoax...sure hope the boys arent up to any new tricks. But are they suggesting that this creature because it has thumbs its an ancestor of the Humans? Sounds like the ole "The Frog has feet like a man's hands" argument here *wink*

[ABE4evr]

@Cypherus21 lol moron..

[bersa888]

@Cardan011 : They did NOT know about calculus, which was first used in the XVII Cent.. Morality is what I believe is the best way of dealing with other people, life and the curve balls this may throw at you. Morality has been evolving since we started walking erect. There's no mystery, no absolute morality. Just us and our great but still limited brain ;-)

[Cardan011]

funny how zealots on both sides creationist and atheist darwinian facists wallow in their dogmas

[Cardan011]

@bersa888 funny how you say they did not know nothing about calculus , engeniring and physics and yet they built megaliths that stand to this day, ancients from early egypt and its found all over the world....you say higher morality? - what is higher morality but whatever your society at the moment deludes itself to be