''Darwinius'' is a genus within the
infraorder
Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...
Adapiformes, a group of
basal strepsirrhine primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter includin ...
s from the middle
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', ...
epoch
In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured.
The moment of epoch is usually decided ...
. Its only known species, ''Darwinius masillae'', lived approximately 47 million years ago (
Lutetian
The Lutetian is, in the geologic timescale, a stage or age in the Eocene. It spans the time between . The Lutetian is preceded by the Ypresian and is followed by the Bartonian. Together with the Bartonian it is sometimes referred to as the ...
stage) based on dating of the fossil site.
The only known fossil, called Ida, was discovered in 1983 at the
Messel pit
The Messel pit (german: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel (Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserved ...
, a disused quarry near the village of
Messel
Messel is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse near Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
The village is first mentioned, as ''Masilla'', in the Lorsch codex.
Messel was the property of the lords of Groschlag from ca. 1400 to 1799 ...
, about 35 km (22 mi) southeast of
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, Germany. The fossil, divided into a slab and partial
counterslab
A compression fossil is a fossil preserved in sedimentary rock that has undergone physical compression. While it is uncommon to find animals preserved as good compression fossils, it is very common to find plants preserved this way. The reason f ...
after the amateur excavation and sold separately, was not reassembled until 2007. The fossil is of a juvenile female, approximately overall length, with the head and body length excluding the tail being about . It is estimated that Ida died at about 80–85% of her projected adult body and limb length.
The genus ''Darwinius'' was named
in commemoration of the bicentenary of the birth of
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
, and the species name ''masillae'' honors
Messel
Messel is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse near Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
The village is first mentioned, as ''Masilla'', in the Lorsch codex.
Messel was the property of the lords of Groschlag from ca. 1400 to 1799 ...
where the specimen was found. The creature appeared superficially similar to a modern
lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagas ...
.
[
The authors of the paper describing ''Darwinius'' classified it as a member of the primate ]family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Notharctidae
Notharctidae is an extinct family of adapiform primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers an ...
, subfamily Cercamoniinae
Cercamoniinae is a subfamily within the extinct primate family Notharctidae primarily found in Europe, although a few genera have been found in North America and Africa.
Classification
*Family Notharctidae
**Subfamily Cercamoniinae
***Genus ...
, suggesting that it has the status of a significant transitional form
A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group. This is especially important where the descendant group is sharply differentiated by gross a ...
(a "link") between the prosimian
Prosimians are a group of primates that includes all living and extinct strepsirrhines ( lemurs, lorisoids, and adapiforms), as well as the haplorhine tarsiers and their extinct relatives, the omomyiforms, i.e. all primates excluding the si ...
and simian
The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkeys (Platyrrhini) and Cat ...
("anthropoid") primate lineages. Others have disagreed with this placement.
Concerns have been raised about the claims made about the fossil's relative importance and the publicising of the fossil before adequate information was available for scrutiny by the academic community.[ Some of Norway's leading biologists, among them Nils Christian Stenseth, have called the fossil an "exaggerated ]hoax
A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
" and stated that its presentation and popular dissemination "fundamentally violate scientific principles and ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
."
Taxonomy
Franzen ''et al.'' (2009) place the genus ''Darwinius'' in the subfamily Cercamoniinae
Cercamoniinae is a subfamily within the extinct primate family Notharctidae primarily found in Europe, although a few genera have been found in North America and Africa.
Classification
*Family Notharctidae
**Subfamily Cercamoniinae
***Genus ...
of the family Notharctidae
Notharctidae is an extinct family of adapiform primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers an ...
within the extinct infraorder Adapiformes of early primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter includin ...
s.
''Darwinius masillae'' is the third primate species to be discovered at the Messel locality that belongs to the cercamoniine adapiforms, in
addition to '' Europolemur koenigswaldi'' and '' Europolemur kelleri''. ''Darwinius masillae'' is similar but not directly related to '' Godinotia neglecta'' from Geiseltal.
The adapiforms are early primates which are known only from the fossil record, and it is unclear whether they form a monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gr ...
or a paraphyletic
In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In ...
grouping. They are usually grouped under Strepsirrhini
Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini (; ) is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Co ...
—including lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagas ...
s, aye-aye
The aye-aye (''Daubentonia madagascariensis'') is a long-fingered lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar with rodent-like teeth that perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger.
It is the world's largest nocturnal primate. ...
s and lorisoids—and as such would not be ancestral to Haplorrhini, which includes tarsier
Tarsiers ( ) are haplorhine primates of the family Tarsiidae, which is itself the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was once more widespread, all of its species living today are found in Maritime Southeas ...
s and simian
The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkeys (Platyrrhini) and Cat ...
s. Simians are usually called "anthropoid": while this term can be confusing, the paper uses it, as does associated publicity material. Simians (anthropoids) include monkeys and apes, which in turn includes humans.
Franzen ''et al.'' in their 2009 paper place ''Darwinius'' in the " Adapoidea group of early primates representative of early haplorhine diversification". This means that, according to these authors, the adapiforms would not be entirely within the Strepsirrhini lineage as hitherto assumed, but would qualify as a transitional fossil (a "missing link") between Strepsirrhini and Haplorrhini, and so could be ancestral to humans. They also suggest that tarsiers have been misplaced in the Haplorrhini and should be considered Strepsirrhini. To support this view they show that as many as six morphological traits found in "Darwinius" are derived
Derive may refer to:
*Derive (computer algebra system), a commercial system made by Texas Instruments
* ''Dérive'' (magazine), an Austrian science magazine on urbanism
*Dérive, a psychogeographical concept
See also
*
*Derivation (disambiguation ...
characters present only in the Haplorrhini lineage, but absent in the Strepsirrhini lineage, which they interpret as synapomorphies
In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to ha ...
. These include, among others, a cranium with a short rostrum, deep mandibular ramus, loss of all grooming claws. They note "that ''Darwinius masillae'' and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either ''Darwinius'' or adapoids to be anthropoids."
Concerns over cladistic analysis
Paleontologists have expressed concern that the cladistic analysis compared only 30 traits when standard practice is to analyze 200 to 400 traits and to include fossils such as anthropoids from Egypt and the primate genus ''Eosimias
''Eosimias'' is a genus of early primates, first discovered and identified in 1999 from fossils collected in the Shanghuang fissure-fillings of Liyang, the southern city of Jiangsu Province, China. It is a part of the family Eosimiidae, and in ...
'' which were not included in the analysis. This contrasts with the motive openly stated by the authors, which was to list 30 anatomical and morphological characteristics "commonly used" to distinguish extant strepsirrhine and haplorrhine primates. Paleontologist Richard Kay of Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...
thought the data could have been cherry-picked. Paleontologist Callum Ross of the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
considered the claim that ''Darwinius'' should be classified as haplorhine was "unsupportable in light of modern methods of classification." The opinion of Chris Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896.
Housing some 22 million ...
, was that ''Darwinius'' was not a "missing link" between anthropoids and more primitive primates, but that further study of this remarkably complete specimen would be very informative and could reveal relationships amongst "the earliest and least human-like of all known primates, the Eocene adapiforms." In an interview published on 27 May 2009, Jørn Hurum stated that he had an open mind about the possibility that the fossil might turn out to be a lemur and that a paper on systematics to be published within about a year would mainly focus on the partial counterslab containing the inner ear and the foot bones.
Most experts hold that the higher primates (simians) evolved from Tarsiidae, branching off the Strepsirrhini before the appearance of the Adapiformes. A smaller group agrees with Franzen ''et al.'' that the higher primates descend from Adapiformes (Adapoidea). The view of paleontologist Tim White is that ''Darwinius'' is unlikely to end the argument.[
Philip D. Gingerich states that the seven superfamilies of primates are commonly associated in the higher taxonomic groupings of suborders ]Anthropoidea
The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkeys (Platyrrhini) and Catarrhi ...
and Prosimii
Prosimians are a group of primates that includes all living and extinct strepsirrhines (lemurs, lorisoids, and adapiforms), as well as the haplorhine tarsiers and their extinct relatives, the omomyiforms, i.e. all primates excluding the simi ...
as an alternative to Haplorhini and Strepsirrhini, depending on the position of Adapoidea and Tarsioidea. He puts forward a phylogeny in which the higher primates evolved from ''Darwinius'', which he groups with other Adapoidea. He shows the Adapoidea together with the Tarsioidea as representing early diversification of the suborder Haplorhini and shows the Strepsirrhini as having branched off directly from the earliest primates. The Revealing the Link website uses this taxonomic grouping and states that ''Darwinius'' is from an early group of primates just prior to diversification into the anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans) and the prosimians (lemurs, lorises and tarsiers).
Erik Seiffert and colleagues at Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...
argue that ''Darwinius'' is on the branch towards the Strepsirrhini and is not a 'missing link' in the evolution of the Anthropoidea. A phylogenetic analysis of 360 morphological characters in 117 extinct and modern primates places ''Darwinius'' in a now-extinct group of strepsirrhines along with a newly discovered 37-million-year-old Egyptian primate, '' Afradapis''. Seiffert believes that characteristics that appeared to show a relationship to haplorrhines are due to convergent evolution and has said that "the PR hype surrounding the ''Darwinius'' description was very confusing.”
Type specimen
The type specimen
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...
is missing only its left rear leg. It has been named Ida after the daughter of Jørn Hurum, the Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
vertebrate paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, who secured one section of the fossil from an anonymous owner and led the research. In addition to the bones, remains of Ida's soft tissue and fur outline are present along with remnants of her last meal of fruit and leaves. The animal is about from nose to tail, or roughly the size of a small, long-tailed cat.
The lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagas ...
-like skeleton of the fossil features primate characteristics of grasping hands with opposable thumbs and nails instead of claws. These would have provided a "precision grip" which, for Ida, was useful for climbing and gathering fruit. Ida also has flexible arms and relatively short limbs. The fossil is missing two anatomical features found in modern lemurs: a grooming claw
A grooming claw (or toilet claw) is the specialized claw or nail on the foot of certain primates, used for personal grooming. All prosimians have a grooming claw, but the digit that is specialized in this manner varies. Tarsiers have a grooming ...
on the foot and a fused row of teeth, a toothcomb
A toothcomb (also tooth comb or dental comb) is a dental structure found in some mammals, comprising a group of front teeth arranged in a manner that facilitates grooming, similar to a hair comb. The toothcomb occurs in lemuriform primates ( ...
, in the bottom jaw.
Digital reconstructions of Ida's teeth
A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, ...
reveal that she has unerupted molars
The molars or molar teeth are large, flat teeth at the back of the mouth. They are more developed in mammals. They are used primarily to grind food during chewing. The name ''molar'' derives from Latin, ''molaris dens'', meaning "millstone to ...
in her jaw, indicating by comparison with modern squirrel monkey
Squirrel monkeys are New World monkeys of the genus ''Saimiri''. ''Saimiri'' is the only genus in the subfamily Saimirinae. The name of the genus is of Tupi origin (''sai-mirím'' or ''çai-mbirín'', with ''sai'' meaning 'monkey' and ''mirím'' ...
s that she was 9–10 months old and would have reached adulthood at 36 months. The shape of Ida's teeth provides clues as to her diet; jagged molars would have allowed her to slice food, suggesting that she was a leaf and seed eater. This is confirmed by the remarkable preservation of her gut content. Furthermore, the lack of a baculum
The baculum (also penis bone, penile bone, or ''os penis'', ''os genitale'' or ''os priapi'') is a bone found in the penis of many placental mammals. It is absent from the human penis, but present in the penises of some primates, such as the ...
(penis bone) found in all lower primates means that the fossil was from a female. X-rays performed on Ida revealed that her right wrist was healing from a fracture which may have contributed to her death. The scientists speculate whether she was overcome by carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is t ...
fumes while drinking from the Messel lake. Hampered by her broken wrist, she slipped into unconsciousness, was washed into the lake and sank to the bottom, where unique fossilisation conditions preserved her for 47 million years.
Discovery and acquisition
The events regarding the original unearthing of the fossil are not clear, though some facts are known. It was found at the Messel pit in 1983, a disused shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especiall ...
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...
noted for its astonishing fossil preservation, near the village of Messel
Messel is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse near Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
The village is first mentioned, as ''Masilla'', in the Lorsch codex.
Messel was the property of the lords of Groschlag from ca. 1400 to 1799 ...
about southeast of Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
in Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
. The fossil came as a slab and partial counter slab and was expertly prepared by encasing each slab in resin using the transfer technique necessary to conserve Messel fossils. At some point the slab and counter slab went separate ways. The counter slab was incorporated in a composite of fabricated parts to represent a complete specimen and arrived at a private Wyoming museum in 1991. Analysis by Jens Franzen of the Natural History Museum of Basel
Natural History Museum Basel (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Basel) is a natural history museum in Basel, Switzerland that houses wide-ranging collections focused on the fields of zoology, entomology, mineralogy, anthropology, osteology and pal ...
, Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
revealed the mixed actual and faked nature of this slab. A comparison of the two slabs indicates that the forger had access to the whole fossil.
The primary slab remained in Germany in the possession of a private collector who kept it secret for twenty years before deciding to sell it anonymously via a German fossil dealer.[Fossil Ida: extraordinary find is 'missing link' in human evolution]
a 19 May 2009 article from ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' Two German museums turned it down as too expensive. A year later at the Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in December 2006, the dealer asked Norwegian vertebrate palaeontologist Jørn Hurum, who had done some previous deals, to discuss something privately. The dealer showed Hurum three high resolution colour photographs of the fossil and told him that the asking price was $1 million. Hurum knew that it was a primate and according to Tudge's book "was fast concluding that the specimen he was looking at could be one of the holy grails of science — the 'missing link' from the crucial time period." He asked for time until after Christmas to organise funding to pay for the specimen and ensure that it had been legally collected, had an export permit and would be legitimately available for study. His first choice was the Natural History Museum of Oslo, but it was beyond their means and he began to think of other museums with sponsors available. He persuaded the Oslo museum to make half the funding available with the remainder to be paid only after X-ray scans proved conclusively that it was not a fake, a process which took several months. He put together a team including leading German experts on the Messel fossils, ensuring international ownership.
After its acquisition it was studied in secret for two years by a team of scientists led by Hurum, who was joined by primate evolution expert Professor Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and palaeontologists Jens Franzen, who had studied the counter slab, and Jörg Habersetzer of the Senckenberg Museum's Research Institute.
Publication
While studies were in progress, negotiations were put in place for a book and with various broadcasters for documentary programs, all of whom agreed to keep the project secret. A deal went through in the summer of 2008 with The History Channel
History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...
which has been reported as paying more for this than any other documentary. The team decided to publish their findings online in '' PLoS ONE'', an open access journal of the Public Library of Science
PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012 ) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and laun ...
. The paper for publication was received by ''PLoS ONE'' on March 19, 2009 and accepted on May 12, 2009.
On 15 May ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' carried a report with interviews with Gingerich and with Tim White, who cautioned that "Lemur advocates will be delighted, but tarsier advocates will be underwhelmed". At about the same time a press release headed "World Renowned Scientists Reveal a Revolutionary Scientific Find That Will Change Everything" announced that the find was "lauded as the most significant scientific discovery of recent times."
On May 19, 2009 the team revealed their findings to the world at a press conference simultaneously with online publication of the paper in ''PLoS ONE'' (for naming purposes, the paper was officially published in print on May 21, 2009). The paper included a statement that the authors were not advocating the possibility that the species could be ancestral to later anthropoid primates; Professor John Fleagle, of Stony Brook University in New York state, asserted that he was one of the anonymous scientific reviewers of the paper and that he had explicitly requested before publication that the authors tone down their original claims that the fossil was on the human evolutionary line. At the press conference the fossil was described as the "missing link" in human evolution. Hurum said that “this fossil rewrites our understanding of the evolution of primates...it will probably be pictured in all the textbooks for the next 100 years" and compared its importance to the Mona Lisa
The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
. He also said that ''Darwinius'' was "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor" and that finding it was "a dream come true". Team member Jens Franzen said the state of preservation was "like the Eighth Wonder of the World", with information "palaeontologists can normally only dream of", but while he said it bore "a close resemblance to ourselves" in some aspects, other features indicated that it was not a direct ancestor.[
Independent experts were quick to question the claims. Henry Gee, a senior editor at ]Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
, said the term "missing link" was misleading and that the scientific community would need to evaluate its significance, which was unlikely to match that of ''Homo floresiensis
''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.
The remains of an in ...
'' or feathered dinosaur
A feathered dinosaur is any species of dinosaur possessing feathers. While this includes all species of birds, there is a hypothesis that many, if not all non-avian dinosaur species also possessed feathers in some shape or form.
It has been s ...
s. Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896.
Housing some 22 million ...
, said he "would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans."[
]
Publicity and media coverage
Having previously experienced how the blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social networking service in which everyday authors can pu ...
had picked up on his work, and seen Chinese dinosaur finds the object of bad early descriptions from blogging, Jørn Hurum decided to orchestrate launch of the fossil in a combined scientific and public event. Atlantic Productions
Atlantic Productions is a British production company based in London that produces television programmes for broadcasters in Europe and the United States.
Overview
Founded in 1992, Atlantic Productions leads a group of companies which make tele ...
, which had cooperated with Hurum on a program on the Predator X
''Pliosaurus'' (meaning 'more lizard') is an extinct genus of thalassophonean pliosaurid known from the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian stages (Late Jurassic) of Europe and South America. Their diet would have included fish, cephalopods, and marin ...
, a giant pliosaur
Pliosauroidea is an extinct clade of plesiosaurs, known from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are best known for the subclade Thalassophonea, which contained crocodile-like short-necked forms with large heads and massive toot ...
from Svalbard
Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group rang ...
, was brought in on the project in order to "take story straight to the masses in a way that would appeal to the average person, especially kids".
The press conference and paper on the fossil was accompanied by the launch of a website the publication of a book which had already been distributed to bookstores, ''The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor'' by Colin Tudge
Colin Hiram Tudge (born 22 April 1943) is a British biologist, science writer and broadcaster.
Tudge was born and brought up in south London and attended Dulwich College, from where he won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, studying zoolo ...
,[Tudge, Colin. (2009). ''The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestors''. Little Brown.] and the announcement of a documentary (''Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link''), made by Atlantic Productions
Atlantic Productions is a British production company based in London that produces television programmes for broadcasters in Europe and the United States.
Overview
Founded in 1992, Atlantic Productions leads a group of companies which make tele ...
in the UK, directed by Tim Walker and produced by Lucie Ridout, to be screened six days later on the History Channel
History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...
(US), BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
(UK),[ and various stations in Germany and Norway. The New York ''Daily News'' noted that "The unveiling of the fossil came as part of an orchestrated publicity campaign unusual for scientific discoveries".]
One of the paper's co-authors, paleontologist Philip D. Gingerich, expressed dissatisfaction with the media campaign, telling ''The Wall Street Journal'' that they had chosen to publish in ''PLoS ONE'' as "There was a TV company involved and time pressure" and they had been pushed to finish the study. "It's not how I like to do science", Gingerich concluded. In an interview, Jørn Hurum said that ''PLoS ONE'' had been chosen as it was open access and the research had been funded by Norwegian taxpayers who would benefit from free access, it did not restrict the length of manuscript or number of illustrations, and "''PLoS ONE'' is the quickest way to publish a large work in the world!"
At the time its discovery was announced in the scientific and the popular press, the fossil was characterized as the "most complete fossil primate ever discovered"; Sir David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histo ...
has described it as "extraordinary". Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
commemorated the unveiling with a themed logo on May 20, 2009. During a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 int ...
Hurum said that "This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists" and "It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail
The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracul ...
. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years." Regarding the publicity, Matt Cartmill an anthropologist from Duke University said "The P.R. campaign on this fossil is I think more of a story than the fossil itself".
Independent experts have raised concern about publicity exaggerating the importance of the find before information was available for scrutiny. Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896.
Housing some 22 million ...
, was "awestruck" by the publicity machine but concerned that if the hype was exaggerated, it could damage the popularisation of science if the creature was not all that it was hyped up to be.[ Paleoanthropologist Elwyn Simons of ]Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...
stated that it is a wonderful specimen but most of the information had been previously known, and paleoanthropologist Peter Brown of the University of New England University of New England may refer to:
* University of New England (Australia), in New South Wales, with about 18,000 students
* University of New England (United States), in Biddeford, Maine, with about 3,000 students
See also
*New England Colle ...
said that the paper had insufficient evidence that ''Darwinius'' was ancestral to the simians.[ Others have also criticized claims that the fossil represents the "missing link in human evolution", arguing that there is no such thing unless evolution is visualized as a chain as there are an enormous number of missing branches, and that while the fossil is a primate, there is no evidence to suggest that its species is a direct ancestor of humans.] ScienceBlogger Brian Switek questioned the sensationalist coverage of claims of ancestral relationships made before a full cladistic analysis, and in a column in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'' he stated that a unique opportunity to communicate science had been lost, with press releases forestalling the necessary discovery and debate which should now proceed.
Hurum considered that the risk of buying the fossil had paid off, and said that "You need an icon or two in a museum to drag people in, this is our Mona Lisa and it will be our Mona Lisa for the next 100 years."[ He has been described as "a modern-era, media-savvy scientist with the right amounts of showmanship, populist sensibility, and disregard for the normal avenues of scientific prestige required to pull this off". The debut in "an astonishingly slick, multi-component media package" required exceptional coordination between networks, museums, producers and scientists while maintaining a level of secrecy which is hard to attain in modern circumstances.][ In interviews published on 27 May, Hurum stated that it was good that they had got the message out that primates were rooted deep in time, but that some of the slogans were too much and the publicity got completely out of control.][ He disclosed that he paid nearly $750,000 (£465,000) for the specimen, but felt it was worthwhile to make the fossil available for scientific investigation instead of it being bought by a private collector and hidden away. Others including Chris Beard were concerned that the price and publicity could lead to profiteering by amateur collectors, and make acquisition of specimens for research purposes more difficult.]
Television documentary
The following television documentary about Ida has been broadcast. The US version is available on DVD.
*''Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link'', BBC, UK, broadcast on 26 May 2009.
*''The Link'', History Channel
History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...
, USA, broadcast 25 May 2009.
*''Terra X: Die geheime Entdeckung'', broadcast multiple times on multiple German TV channels, the last time on 14 March 2013 on ZDF Neo.
See also
* List of fossil primates
This is a list of fossil primates—extinct primates for which a fossil record exists. Primates are generally thought to have evolved from a small, unspecialized mammal, which probably fed on insects and fruits. However, the precise source of the p ...
* List of transitional fossils
* '' Notharctus''
References
External links
Life restoration of ''Darwinius masillae'' by paleoartist Julius T. Csotonyi
{{Taxonbar, from=Q244446
Eocene primates
Prehistoric strepsirrhines
Fossil taxa described in 2009
Transitional fossils
Prehistoric primate genera
†Darwinius
Cenozoic mammals of Europe