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The entire world seems to have gone utterly insane over this fossil, known colloquially as "Ida", but officially as Darwinius masillae. And it is a lovely fossil. It is also important because it will, I'm sure, tell us lots about what was going on in primate evolution 47 million years ago. I'm not going to go through the reports because there are too bloody many of them, but I will point out that while many have fallen for the "Missing Link" Found! angle plenty of others- especially the bloggers writing opinion pieces are being rather more restrained.
However utterly revolutionary it is not. At best it means a group of animals a bit like lemurs (Adapids) are more closely related to apes and monkeys than a group of animals a bit like Tarsiers (Omomyids). Be honest had you heard of either?
I quite like it because its another species published in PLoSOne (The Public Library of Science). This is an open access journal, so anyone can download and read a copy of the paper for free. There's a lovely long description of the fossil- it is young (under a year old), female (it lacks a baculum [penis bone] which you'd expect to see in male primates like this), and very nicely preserved (the body outline, hair and stomach contents are all preserved).
Its from the Messel deposits, which have yielded beautiful fossils of fishes, early horses, ants, weird mammals like Leptictidium, and all sorts of other things. Messel was covered in one episode of David Attenborough's 1980s series on fossils Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives, and also in the first episode of Walking With Beasts- though proto-whales aren't known from the area. I can't believe someone thought it was a good idea to turn the site into a rubbish dump. Fortunately they haven't, and it is now a World Heritage Site.
I am not qualified to say how much this fossil supports the conclusions that the authors are trying to draw- that the group to which Ida belongs are more closely related to monkeys and apes than tarsiers and their relatives are. However the paper lacks a phylogenetic analysis and as Laelaps and The Open Source Paleontologist points out this is something one expects to see when claims for moving large groups around are made. Hopefully one will be done soon, and the question of whether Adapids (the group to which Darwinius belongs) is closer to lemurs or monkeys and apes will be better resolved.
I don't really have much to add to the criticism of the hype either. Both Ed Yong and Carl Zimmer have covered it far better than I could hope to. Especially Ed's post.
Personally the part that really annoys me- I wouldn't be at all surprised if the view of the Adapids in the paper turned out to be wrong. You just know that the creationists will have a field day because while I'm sure most of you know that the great strength of science is that whenever new information appears which contradicts its conclusions we change our minds- something the creationists seem incapable of appreciating as being A Good Thing. I just hope I am pleasantly surprised.
However utterly revolutionary it is not. At best it means a group of animals a bit like lemurs (Adapids) are more closely related to apes and monkeys than a group of animals a bit like Tarsiers (Omomyids). Be honest had you heard of either?
I quite like it because its another species published in PLoSOne (The Public Library of Science). This is an open access journal, so anyone can download and read a copy of the paper for free. There's a lovely long description of the fossil- it is young (under a year old), female (it lacks a baculum [penis bone] which you'd expect to see in male primates like this), and very nicely preserved (the body outline, hair and stomach contents are all preserved).
Its from the Messel deposits, which have yielded beautiful fossils of fishes, early horses, ants, weird mammals like Leptictidium, and all sorts of other things. Messel was covered in one episode of David Attenborough's 1980s series on fossils Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives, and also in the first episode of Walking With Beasts- though proto-whales aren't known from the area. I can't believe someone thought it was a good idea to turn the site into a rubbish dump. Fortunately they haven't, and it is now a World Heritage Site.
I am not qualified to say how much this fossil supports the conclusions that the authors are trying to draw- that the group to which Ida belongs are more closely related to monkeys and apes than tarsiers and their relatives are. However the paper lacks a phylogenetic analysis and as Laelaps and The Open Source Paleontologist points out this is something one expects to see when claims for moving large groups around are made. Hopefully one will be done soon, and the question of whether Adapids (the group to which Darwinius belongs) is closer to lemurs or monkeys and apes will be better resolved.
I don't really have much to add to the criticism of the hype either. Both Ed Yong and Carl Zimmer have covered it far better than I could hope to. Especially Ed's post.
Personally the part that really annoys me- I wouldn't be at all surprised if the view of the Adapids in the paper turned out to be wrong. You just know that the creationists will have a field day because while I'm sure most of you know that the great strength of science is that whenever new information appears which contradicts its conclusions we change our minds- something the creationists seem incapable of appreciating as being A Good Thing. I just hope I am pleasantly surprised.
