The missing link?

Today a press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York with Dr. Jørn Hurum of the University of Oslo revealed that a fossil excavated 25 years ago is much more than it first appeared to be. After 2 years of study at the Oslo Natural History Museum, the cat-sized Eocene fossil named Ida, after Hurum's daughter, has been claimed to be a "missing link." However, Darwinius masillae is not quite what the media has hyped it up to be in calling it a "missing link" which would suggests an evolutionary step in the divergence of anthropoids from prosimians. Rather, it is a "missing link" in that it was a link we didn't know was there - part of a larger group Adapoidea, from which humans, great apes, and lemurs have all descended. In other words, it's not a missing link at all since it is in no way a homonid. Perhaps the fossil's greatest significance resides in that, barring human burial, never before have any primate remains been so incredibly preserved.

The remarkably intact fossil was found preserved in oil shale in the Messel Pit in Germany. The Messel Pit is known as a treasure trove of fossils today due to the formation of the pit. What was once a volcanic crater about a half-billion years ago, over time became filled with groundwater, forming a deep, still lake. Very little microbial life could survive at the depths of the lake. Surrounded by rich, diverse rainforest at the time, the accumulation of noxious gases coupled with the rainforest downpours, many helpless animals were swept into the lake (Ida appeared to have a broken wrist) to settle upon the bottom undisturbed while falling sediment covered and compressed to form the fossils that now fill the dry quarry.

Visit RevealingTheLink.com for the bizarre made-for-tv hype
Visit PLoS one for the full journal article on the findings