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« on: May 20, 2009, 03:53:53 am »
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link: http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=147416005 Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossil which could be the evolutionary "missing link" between humans and our very distant ancestors.
At a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Ida, a two-foot long lemur-like creature, was shown off to the world.
Discovered in Germany by a team of Norwegian scientists, Ida is 95% complete and believed to be 20 times older than most fossils which help explain human evolution.
Experts are excited because it is a transitional species, with characteristics of both primitive non-human creatures such as lemurs and also those higher up the evolutionary line, such as monkeys apes and humans.
As such it places Ida - or Darwinius masillae to give the specimen its full name - at the very root of anthropoid evolution, when primates were first beginning to develop features that would eventually evolve into our own, it is claimed.
It took a team from the University of Oslo two years to analyse and verify Ida. The specimen was unearthed in the 1980s, but it was only recently that scientists were able to analyse the complete fossil. Previously it had been split in two by private collectors.
The Oslo team concluded that Ida was a female herbivore believed to have died when she was nine months old. Scientists suggest she was overcome by carbon dioxide gas while drinking at the Messel Lake. She sank to the bottom on the waters where the unique conditions preserved her for 47 million years.
Among Ida's features are human-like opposable thumbs. She also has nails as opposed to claws and teeth, much like a monkey. Scientists also noted that her forward-facing eyes are like ours, allowing vision to overlap and allowing the creature to judge distances.
Dr Jerry Hooker, mammalian palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, said: "The key significance of this new fossil is that it is so complete. While we do know of a few nearly complete early primate skeletons, Darwinius masillae also has fur impressions and the remains of its last meal in its gut. It is also the most complete primate skeleton from Messel itself, and the earlier ones are frustratingly incomplete in one way or another."
"Scientists can therefore now learn a lot more from this new fossil about a very early stage in primate evolution and also reconstruct aspects of its lifestyle." I personally don't see the resemblance... Looks more like a sloth to me <_<;; It's like that whole "hobbits live on this island and were human's ancestors!", where they just try to slap evolution onto anything. Other than that, I think it's an awesome discovery simply as a new animal.
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