A Missing Link to Different Relatives

[James Brody]

"Ida"was found 25 years ago near Frankfurt. She has been scrubbed and scanned and is to be shown to us all by Hiz Honor, Mike Bloomberg, on the bicentenary of Chuck's birth..

"Anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors. Some 50 million years ago, two ape-like groups walked the Earth. One is known as the tarsidae, a precursor of the tarsier, a tiny, large-eyed creature that lives in Asia. Another group is known as the adapidae, a precursor of today's lemurs in Madagascar.

"Based on previously limited fossil evidence, one big debate had been whether the tarsidae or adapidae group gave rise to monkeys, apes and humans. The latest discovery bolsters the less common position that our ancient ape-like ancestor was an adapid, the believed precursor of lemurs.

"Philip Gingerich, president-elect of the Paleontological Society in the U.S., has co-written a paper that will detail next week the latest fossil discovery in Public Library of Science, a peer-reviewed, online journal."

Http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124235632936122739.html

Also http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wor...liest_Ancestor