"Missing link" or major hype?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Jørn Hurum, one of the scientists that announced the fossil find on Tuesday. 2009 AETN.

A squirrel-sized primate that lived 47 million years ago in the rainforests of Europe may be the common ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans, according to scientists who announced the discovery of the “missing link” fossil yesterday at a press conference. The well-preserved fossil has been at the center of a whirlwind PR blitz, including a History Channel documentary airing next week and an upcoming book — yet some scientists say the bones don’t live up to the hype.

It's all in the wrist: Humans lack a knuckle-walking ancestor

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Though counterintuitive, scientists have turned their attention away from the feet and to the wrist and forearm to better understand how humans evolved upright walking, or bipedalism. African apes are humans' closest living relatives, and because these apes knuckle-walk, some paleoanthropologists have suggested that African apes and humans share a knuckle-walking ancestor. A new study, however, reveals that lumping the locomotion of all African apes together is a mistake: Knuckle-walking may have evolved more than once in the ape lineage. Therefore, the researchers say, humans probably did not evolve from a knuckle-walker but instead from a more general tree-dweller.

Ape on EARTH Magazine

"Missing link" or major hype?

It's all in the wrist: Humans lack a knuckle-walking ancestor