[color=darkblue]"MISSING LINK" PHOTOS: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs[/color]?
[color=blue]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.
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.
More on Missing Links
• National Geographic-Funded Study of Human Missing Links
• Make Missing Links Morph: National Geographic Channel's Interactive on Extreme Evolution
—Brian Handwerk
Photographs courtesy PLoS ONE
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- RobbyG wrote:
Its quite freaky actually.
It looks very much so like our ancestors from the monkeys.
Often I still feel my tail bone getting jiggy with me....internally :lol:
Ha..Ha... Ha....!
ROFLMAO..........................................
:lol: :lol: :lol: Tom Jones
- michaeldubai wrote:
Yup, bears close resemblence to people you see driving around on the streets here
Actually, this thing looks more like a girl I saw lying on my bed one morning… after a heavy night of drinking….
And, to this day, I still don’t remember how she ended up in my bed in the first place!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol: RobbyG
- Tom Jones wrote:
- michaeldubai wrote:
Yup, bears close resemblence to people you see driving around on the streets here
Actually, this thing looks more like a girl I saw lying on my bed one morning… after a heavy night of drinking….
And, to this day, I still don’t remember how she ended up in my bed in the first place!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol: - michaeldubai wrote:
She managed to dive in my bed too one day.
Her name is Michelle :lol:
- RobbyG wrote:
- Tom Jones wrote:
- michaeldubai wrote:
Yup, bears close resemblence to people you see driving around on the streets here
Actually, this thing looks more like a girl I saw lying on my bed one morning… after a heavy night of drinking….
And, to this day, I still don’t remember how she ended up in my bed in the first place!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol: - michaeldubai wrote:
She managed to dive in my bed too one day.
Her name is Michelle :lol: - Tom Jones wrote:
No, it's not the same girl..!!
Yours was a lot cuter than mine.....!!!!!!!
Where is Michelle by the way??
:lol: :lol: :lol: RobbyG
- Tom Jones wrote:
Where is Michelle by the way??
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Want her number? :lol: Tom Jones ....! I hope she is the same Michelle I'm thinking about... C'mon...Robby..... If so, that's a big no, no.. Buddy... 8) 8) RobbyG Are you backing out on your request now? Sissy boy :lol:
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Tom Jones
- RobbyG wrote:
Are you backing out on your request now?
Sissy boy :lol:
First, I need to know if it's the same Michelle I'm thinking about...
Do you know what I mean??? RobbyG
- Tom Jones wrote:
- RobbyG wrote:
Are you backing out on your request now?
Sissy boy :lol:
First, I need to know if it's the same Michelle I'm thinking about...
Do you know what I mean??? - RobbyG wrote:
No its not Michelle Obama, if you thought that.
WYSIWYG :wink: Tom Jones OK.... Give me her number... RobbyG
- Tom Jones wrote:
OK....
Give me her number...
Just say that Robby G send ya: 04-3496444 (Dubai Zoo) Tom Jones
- RobbyG wrote:
- Tom Jones wrote:
OK....
Give me her number...
Just say that Robby G send ya: 04-3496444 (Dubai Zoo) - Tom Jones wrote:
The Zoo is closed right now, and I'm going to bed right now.
Anyway,...how did you date Michelle if she's in Dubai?
Isn't there a Zoo in Holland??
:lol: :lol: RobbyG
- Tom Jones wrote:
- RobbyG wrote:
- Tom Jones wrote:
OK....
Give me her number...
Just say that Robby G send ya: 04-3496444 (Dubai Zoo) - Tom Jones wrote:
The Zoo is closed right now, and I'm going to bed right now.
Anyway,...how did you date Michelle if she's in Dubai?
Isn't there a Zoo in Holland??
:lol: :lol: - RobbyG wrote:
She was on an exchange permit in Artis Holland. :lol: