Abstract
Year 2009 is being celebrated as the bicentenary of British naturalist Charles Robert Darwin’s birth as well as 150 years of his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” in short “On the Origin of Species”. Darwin is hailed as one of the greatest scientist who put forth the theory of gradual evolution and branching of all life forms. Unfortunately, then fossil records were incomplete to produce evidence of human evolution. For 200 years paleobiologists were looking for any evidence of a transitional fossil to showcase the evolution of monkeys, apes and human. The story of Ida began in 1983 when she was collected from Messel pit in Germany by an unknown collector, and displayed in his home for 20 years before deciding to sell. The fossil Ida was preserved in nature for ages in the Germany’s Messel pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils. Ida lived when major changes were taking place on earth, the dinosaurs had become extinct, the Himalayas were forming and a range of mammals thrived in vast jungles all over the world. Prof. Jørn Hurum of the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway bought the fossil for 1 million USD, assembled top international team of experts, studied the fossil secretly for 2 years, and satisfied themselves as to the genuineness of the fossil. Finally Prof. Jørn Hurum announced the discovery of 47 million years old fossil — a link in the evolution of monkeys, apes and man. He named the fossil “Ida” and her scientific name is Darwinius masillae (named in honor of Charles Darwin’s bicentenary). Ida will remain for long a subject of intense research and discussion almost throughout the world. The fact that all life forms have common ancestors at some point of time is a well established universal reality as unfolded by research on DNA.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Darwin C (1859) In: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. 1st edition, John Murray, London. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=text&pageseq=1,retrieved2009-01-09
Ostrom JH (1976) Archaeopteryx and the origin of birds. Biologic J Linnean Soc 8: 91–182
Nedin C (1999) All About Archaeoptery. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.htmlx
Tattersal I, Jeffrey H, Schwartz (1999) Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution. PNAS 96(13):7117–7711
Erickson GM, Makovicky PJ, Currie PJ, Norell MA, Yerby SA, Brochu CA (2004) Gigantism and comparative life-history parameters of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs. Nature 430(7001):772–775
Andrew L (2009) Celebrity fossil primate: missing link or weak link? Science 324: 1124–1125
Franzen JL, Gingerich PD, Habersetzer J, Hurum JH, von Koenigswald W, et al. (2009) Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology. PLoS ONE 4(5):e5723.
World Heritage Fossil: Science Daily, May 19, 2009. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090519104643.htm
Ida: The Holy Grail of Missing Links? http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2009/05/20/ida_the_holy_grail_of_evolutionary_specu_1
National Geographic Magazine. September, 2009
Randerson J. Ed Pilkington in New York Deal in Hamburg bar led scientist to Ida fossil, the ‘eighth wonder of the world’ guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 May 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/fossil-ida-missing-link-discovery
World heritage fossil. Science Daily, May 19, 2009. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090519104643.htm
Janet BE (2002) The Power of Place. Vol. 2, Jonathan Cape, Charles Darwin, London
O’Leary. Scientific American quietly disowns Ida “missing link” fossil. 21 July 2009. http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/scientific-american-quietly-disowns-ida-missing-link-fossil/
Rex D (2009) Fossil primate challenges Ida’s place. Nature 46:1040
Seiffert ER, Perry MGJ, Simons EL, Boyer DM (2009) Conversant evolution of arthropoid-like adaptations in Eocene adapiform primates. Nature 461:1118–1121
Watson JD, Crick FHC (1953) Molecular structure of nucleic acid-a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171(4356):737–738
Watson JD, Crick FHC (2003) Molecular structure of nucleic acids A Structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Am J Psychiatry 160:623–624
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 The National Academy of Sciences, India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sharma, V.P. (2010). Ida: A link to human evolution. In: Sharma, V.P. (eds) Nature at Work: Ongoing Saga of Evolution. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-8489-992-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-8489-992-4_2
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-8489-991-7
Online ISBN: 978-81-8489-992-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)