50 million years ago, Europe was very different then today. Continents have drifted and sea levels changed. The world climate is more humid and tropical.
The primate’s home around the lake was a lush and tropical rainforest.
This is where our fossil lived out her life as a pre-historic primate.
She lived in a dense jungle of tall trees and vines.
As the team continued to examine her skeleton they were able to deduce how she lived:
Looking at her thumb and her hands and legs they could see that these were grasping hands and grasping feet. Evidently these were hands and feet designed for living on the top of the trees, no doubt about that.
Her arm and leg bones are quite strong for such a little animal, indicating that she had quite a lot of muscles.
To understand what she did eat, the team looked at her teeth.
According to the x-ray of her teeth, we know she did eat fruit and leaves and probably supplementing it with insects. The team even found seeds in her gut.
She has an extraordinary large number of teeth.
The team made a 3D CT scan analysis of her teeth and realized that she had her baby teeth as well as her unerupted adult teeth still in her jaw. This primate was a youngster.
She is a young female with an equivalent age of a human somewhere between 6 and 12 years old
The investigating scientist has a daughter, 5 years old who had a similar teeth situation at the time, so he decided to name the fossil Ida, after the name of his own daughter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7lXsjivGu0
to be continued………………..
By studying the fossil’s Teeth
Dr. Holly Smith, a dental anthropologist, studying the teeth of fossils can establish the fossil’s age, what it ate and how it relates to the other primates.
Dr. Jens Lorenz Franzen, a renowned fossil expert, can’t wait to discover this unique fossil, which has a complete skeleton, complete soft body outlines and the complete gut content!
Prof. Philip Gingerich, he spends his whole life searching for the link between earlier and modern mammals.
Starting analysis:
They could not find the willy’s bone, so they know it is a female.
Now, here comes the question, where does she come from?
The way her delicate body was preserved gave the clue. The body was cast into a polyester resin and scientists know that there is only place in the world where this technique is used, and that is Germany, the Messel Pit, there is no other place in the world like this.
All the fossils found here, are complete and unique, not in little pieces
This is a fossil rabbit
This is a fossil snake
this is a fossil reptile
This is a fossil crocodile
this is a fossil bird
this is a fossil fog
this is a fossil big ant
this is a fossil bat
The technique of preserving the fossil in plastic:
then, we can study the fossil, bone by bone.
Some 50 million years ago, the Messel Pit was a volcano that explode and filled with muddy water lacking oxygen, that’s where little Ida drank, fell in and perished!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dIGf1tgRVc
……………… to be continued.
47 million year old fossilised remains
The most complete fossil proimate ever found
A missing link to the origins of man?
47 million years ago, the dinosaurs were already long extinct, the early mammals established themselves, the tropical rain forest covering the earth created a home for small primates, amongst them the ancestor of all of us.
Scientists searching for our early ancestors in East Africa.
In 1970, scientists found the link between the ape and humans, a distant female ancestor called Lucy, proving that humans started walking up-right some 3.2 million years ago
In 1984, the skeleton of a boy was found, providing proof that 1.5 million years ago, humans lost their hair and take their first step on to the ground of the earth.
Scientist hoped to find more earlier mammal fossils on earth, to confirm the link between the ape and men.
Then in December 2006, in a fossil fair in Hambury, Germany.
we found Ida, a young female fossils which can explain the evolution of humans, a link between the lemur, the ape and ourselves.
The fossil is 96 percent complete and did cost over one million dollars.
A scientific examination using X rays confirmed that the fossil was genuine and showed detailed internal structure, including bone marrow.
The common feature we share with all primates is that we have four fingers with nails, not claws, and an opposable thumb, Ida shares this feature with us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubfui-eMRuI
………………. to be continued.
