A group of scientists, led by Jørn Hurum from the University of Oslo, unveiled an extremely well prepared fossil that they hail to be the missing link between primates and other mammals.
Ida, as the fossil is called, looks like a cross between a monkey and a lemur, and is 47 million years old. It was dug out in the 1980's by amateur fossil hunters and had resided in a private collections for the past 20 years, until Jørn Hurum bought it from a German dealer and brought it to the University of Oslo two years ago. Once there an international team conducted research on it to verify their suspicions: That Ida was the missing link.
It is a remarkably well preserved fossil and it's implications will be discussed for many years to come.
There is a website dedicated to the discovery and a documentary movie has been made detailing the research of the past two years. See Revealing the Link for more details.
A group of scientists, led by Jørn Hurum from the University of Oslo, unveiled an extremely well prepared fossil that they hail to be the missing link between primates and other mammals.
