Alex Watts, Sky News Online Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.
Fossil
This 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' is described as the "eighth wonder of the world"
The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.
The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".
They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".
Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.
Sir David Attenborough said Darwin "would have been thrilled" to have seen the fossil - and says it tells us who we are and where we came from.
Pictures From Atlantic Productions
"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals," he said.
"This is the one that connects us directly with them.
"Now people can say 'okay we are primates, show us the link'.
"The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it's no longer missing."
A team of the world's leading fossil experts, led by Professor Jorn Hurum, of Norway's National History Museum, have been secretly researching the 1ft 9in-tall young female monkey for the past two years.
And now it has been transported to New York under high security and unveiled to the world during the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.
Charles Darwin
Darwin caused storm with his theory
Later this month, it will be exhibited for one day only at the Natural History Museum in London before being returned to Oslo.
Scientists say Ida - squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time - is the most complete primate fossil ever found.
With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.
Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.
Ida was unearthed by an amateur fossil-hunter some 25 years ago in Messel pit, an ancient crater lake near Frankfurt, Germany, famous for its fossils.
This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.
Fossil expert Professor Jorn Hurum
She was cleaned and set in polyester resin - and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector's wall for 20 years.
Sky News sources say the owner had no idea of the unique fossil's significance and simply admired it like a cherished Van Gogh or Picasso painting.
But in 2006, Ida came into the hands of private dealer Thomas Perner, who presented her to Prof Hurum at the annual Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in Germany - a centre for the murky world of fossil-trading.
Prof Hurum said when he first saw the blueprint for evolution - the "most beautiful fossil worldwide" - he could not sleep for two days.
A home movie records the dramatic moment.
"This is really something that the world has never seen before, this is a unique specimen, totally unique," he says, clearly emotional.
The missing link fossil
X-ray of Ida's badly fractured left wrist
He says he knew she should be saved for science rather than end up hidden from the world in a wealthy private collector's vault.
But the dealer's asking price was more than $1 million (£660,000) - ten times the amount even the rarest of fossils fetch on the black market.
Eventually, after six months of negotiations, he managed to raise the cash in Norway and brought Ida to Oslo.
Attenborough: The Link Is No Longer Missing
Prof Hurum - who last summer dug up the fossil remains of a 50ft marine monster called Predator X from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole - then assembled a "dream team" of experts who worked in secret for two years.
They included palaeontologist Dr Jens Franzen, Dr Holly Smith, of the University of Michigan, and Philip Gingerich, president-elect of the US Paleontological Society.
Researchers could prove the fossil was genuine through X-rays, knowing it is impossible to fake the inner structure of a bone.
Through radiometric dating of Messel's volcanic rocks, they discovered Ida lived 47 million years ago in the Eocene period.
This was when tropical forests stretched right to the poles, and South America was still drifting and had yet to make contact with North America.
During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans.
The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.
This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals. This is the one that connects us directly with them.
Sir David Attenborough
"When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859, he said a lot about transitional species," said Prof Hurum
"...and he said that will never be found, a transitional species, and his whole theory will be wrong, so he would be really happy to live today when we publish Ida.
"This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.
"It's part of our evolution that's been hidden so far, it's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete.
"They are so broken there's almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it's really a dream come true."
Up until now, the most famous fossil primate in the world has been Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974.
She was then our earliest known ancestor, and only 40% complete.
Posts: 249 | From: PA | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Are you kidding me? A Lemur? Whats next? jackalopes?
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
well... how did evolution get created? How did our universe get created? ... And how did all those other universes get created? A thing like that doesn't, "just happen". It got created some how... even little Ida.lol
Posts: 2634 | From: The highway | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Highwaychild: well... how did evolution get created? How did our universe get created? ... And how did all those other universes get created? A thing like that doesn't, "just happen". It got created some how... even little Ida.lol
Now stop saying such things, you might be accused of making sense.
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!! Posts: 3317 | From: CT | Registered: Dec 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Highwaychild: well... how did evolution get created? How did our universe get created? ... And how did all those other universes get created? A thing like that doesn't, "just happen". It got created some how... even little Ida.lol
some turtle at the bottom of the stack sneezed
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I am convinced.......Jason's ancestors were monkeys......tough break man......think I may have dated your cousin once (just kidding)
-------------------- "The greatest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." (WC) Posts: 386 | From: Georgia | Registered: May 2009
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Oh..no...never mind, I'm just missing. I hear folks find my footprints from time to time though. Maybe someday someone will find me! \
Seriously though, except for this whole young earth hypothesis (which is itself young and never tested) there is nothing that conflicts between science and God. Science is very likely the study of Gods work in all truth and I find it very silly how worked up the christian community gets over this issue.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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