-Scientists unveil fossil of 47 million-year-old primate, Darwinius masillae
SCORES of people were allowed to feast their eyes on what a group of scientists call the Holy Grail of human evolution.

The fossil has opposable thumbs, similar to humans, and fingernails instead of claws.

A team of researchers Tuesday unveiled an almost perfectly intact fossil of a 47 million-year-old primate they say represents the long-sought missing link between humans and apes.

The fossil was unveiled yesterday amid great fanfare at a news conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Lead Scientist, Jorn Hurum, nicknamed it “Ida” after his own six-year-old daughter.

However, it is officially known as Darwinius masillae and the fossil of the lemur-like creature shows it had opposable thumbs like humans and fingernails instead of claws.

“Ida” as the creature is dubbed, is described as a transitional species showing characteristics from both the non-human (prosimians and lemurs) and human (anthropoids, monkeys, apes and man) evolutionary lines.

It is small, its body is about the size of a raccoon, but it has characteristics found in later primates and in humans.

The 47 million year old fossilized remains of a primate is seen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Scientists say the cat-sized animal’s hind legs offer evidence of evolutionary changes that led to primates standing upright – a breakthrough that could finally confirm Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists,” Hurum said at a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History.
“It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years.”

Before its unveiling, the near perfect remains of “Ida” was discovered by a team of amateur fossil hunters inside a mile-wide crater outside of Frankfurt, Germany, in 1983.

Experts believe the pit was a volcanic caldera where scores of animals from the Eocene epoch were killed and their remains were kept remarkably well-preserved.

Though the pit has been a bountiful source of other fossils, the inexperienced archeologists didn’t realize the value of their find.

The fossil, of a young female is described as “the most complete primate fossil ever found.”

“We realized, when I was offered this specimen,” said Dr. Jorn Hurum of the University of Oslo, who led the two-year effort to determine the fossil’s importance, “that it was the most complete primate in the fossil record.”

Years later, the University of Oslo bought the 95%-intact fossil, and Hurum studied it in secret for two years.

His colleague, Jens Franzen, hailed the discovery as “the eighth wonder of the world.”

“We’re not dealing with our grand, grand, grandmother, but perhaps with our grand, grand, grand aunt,” Franzen said.

The unveiling of the fossil came as part of a carefully-orchestrated publicity campaign unusual for scientific discoveries.
(Sources: ABC News and Daily News – USA)