Missing link?

Norwegian paleontologist Jorn Hurum, who led a team of scientists who analyzed the fossil primate in the past two years, said it may resemble one of the earliest ancestors of humans but was not likely to have been a direct ancestor.

"We are not dealing with our grand- grand- grand-grandmother but perhaps our grand- grand- grand- aunt," Jens Franzen of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt told reporters at New York's American Museum of Natural History on Tuesday.

Nicknamed "Ida," the female primate, measuring 58 cm, was a female that died before its first birthday, Hurum said. It's Latin name is Darwinius masillae in honor of Charles Darwin, himself a pioneer in the science of evolution.

Fossil discovered in the 1980s

The fossil was found 26 years ago in a disused quarry southeast of Frankfurt. But the fossil was sold to the University of Oslo in 2006, after being kept in a private collection.

The fossil, however, was split into two halves at that time by private collectors. The two halves were reassembled by a Norwegian-led team, which said Ida was the most complete fossil primate ever found.

Ida a "clue" to human ancestry

The direct ancestors of humans must have looked "something like" Ida, Hurum said.

"This is the only clue we've got to what they looked like," he said. "But being cautious as scientists ... we are of course not stating that this is our direct ancestor. That's too much,"Hurum added. "It's really, really hard to pinpoint who gave rise to humans at that point, but this is as good as it gets."

Scientists said Ida is linked to humans by the talus bone in her ankle, which is the same shape; her big toes and nails, not claws, were enough to confirm she was not a primate.

nrt/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Nick Amies