Stop the fucking presses.
People. Meet Ida. She's our great, great, great grand aunt. Also, she's the earliest missing link between humans and mammals.
She's been revealed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York... today? Or something. It's just that everyone's been talking about her today. She was found in Messel Pit in Germany. After 2 years of being examined in secret by Oslo-based scientists, Ida is revealed to be 20 times older than most fossils in human evolution. Known as the Darwinius masillae, Ida is a 47-million year-old fossil. Though originally classified as early prosimian (lemurs), she has forward-looking eyes and an opposable thumbs.
Look at that tail, gentlemen. Your vestigial ones may very well have come from that. Not gonna lie, I think I experienced a phantom itch on mine when I first read about Ida.
On the 150th anniversary of its publication, Darwin's theory is being celebrated all over the world for the incredible understanding it gives us of life on Earth. As Jørn Hurum explains, "Darwin said a lot about transitional species and how they were missing from the geological record. And he said that if a transitional species is never found, his whole theory will be wrong. For the last fifty years, we've gained a deeper and deeper understanding of species that show transitions between large groups of mammals. Ida is very comparable to some of the most significant fossils that have been described like Lucy, the Neanderthals, Tyrannosaurus rex, and Archaeopteryx. It's a really important specimen that will become an icon of evolution. So I think Darwin would be really happy about this specimen."
That's it. Darwin is vindicated. Science has won. Time to burn the churches of intelligent design.
Learn more about this awesome, awesome discovery at Revealing the Link.
She's been revealed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York... today? Or something. It's just that everyone's been talking about her today. She was found in Messel Pit in Germany. After 2 years of being examined in secret by Oslo-based scientists, Ida is revealed to be 20 times older than most fossils in human evolution. Known as the Darwinius masillae, Ida is a 47-million year-old fossil. Though originally classified as early prosimian (lemurs), she has forward-looking eyes and an opposable thumbs.
Look at that tail, gentlemen. Your vestigial ones may very well have come from that. Not gonna lie, I think I experienced a phantom itch on mine when I first read about Ida.
On the 150th anniversary of its publication, Darwin's theory is being celebrated all over the world for the incredible understanding it gives us of life on Earth. As Jørn Hurum explains, "Darwin said a lot about transitional species and how they were missing from the geological record. And he said that if a transitional species is never found, his whole theory will be wrong. For the last fifty years, we've gained a deeper and deeper understanding of species that show transitions between large groups of mammals. Ida is very comparable to some of the most significant fossils that have been described like Lucy, the Neanderthals, Tyrannosaurus rex, and Archaeopteryx. It's a really important specimen that will become an icon of evolution. So I think Darwin would be really happy about this specimen."
That's it. Darwin is vindicated. Science has won. Time to burn the churches of intelligent design.
Learn more about this awesome, awesome discovery at Revealing the Link.