Missing link found!

friendface · 05-04-2010 12:56am #1

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/7550033/Missing-link-between-man-and-apes-found.html

The new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, is to be revealed when the two-million-year-old skeleton of a child is unveiled this week.

Scientists believe the almost-complete fossilised skeleton belonged to a previously-unknown type of early human ancestor that may have been a intermediate stage as ape-men evolved into the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis.

The fossil record of early humans is notoriously patchy and scientists now hope that the that the new remains will provide fresh clues about how our species evolved.

Scientists believe that a group of apelike hominids known as Australopithicus, which first emerged in Africa around 3.9 million years ago, gradually evolved into the first Homo species.

Over time the Australopithicus species lost their more apelike features as they started to stand upright and their brain capacity increased.
Around 2.5 million years ago Homo habilis, the first species to be described as distinctly human, began to appear, although only a handful of specimens have ever been found.

It is thought that the new fossil to be unveiled this week will be identified as a new species that fits somewhere between Australopithicus and Homo habilis.

If it is confirmed as a missing link between the two groups, it would be of immense scientific importance, helping to fill in a gap in the evolutionary history of modern man.