Researchers yesterday revealed the beautifully preserved remains of the lemur-like creature who died in a lake 47million years ago. Scientists claim she is an important 'missing link' in mankind's family tree and will shed light on a crucial part of evolution.She is so perfectly fossilised, it is possible to see the outline of her fur in the rock. Ida was discovered in 1983 in a fossil treasure trove called the Messel Pit in Germany, but the collector who put her on his wall had no idea of her significance.
It was a high stakes, secretive, million-dollar deal in a Hamburg vodka bar that finally thrust Ida into the hands of researchers who recognised just what her skeleton might mean for our understanding of human history. In 2006 a dealer named Thomas Perner called Dr Jorn Hurum of the University of Oslo Natural History Museum. The pair met in the Hamburg bar, with Dr Hurum wondering what Perner had in his possession that could possibly be so special.
Ida comes from a time when the primate family tree was splitting into two groups - one with humans, apes and monkeys, the other with lemurs and bush babies. Her teeth appear to indicate that although she appears more similar to a lemur, she is actually closer to the line that resulted in apes, monkeys and humans. Her forward-facing eyes are like human eyes and she has human-like thumbs. Astonishingly, she still has her baby, or deciduous, teeth, leading researchers to guess she was just six to nine months old when she died.
Ida, who will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum in London on Tuesday, is 20 times older than most known fossils that can shed light on human evolution. The team concluded that she is a new species they have called Darwinius masillae, to mark the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth. (Daily Mail)