Ida, a 47-million-year-old fossil found
Lack of male characteristics reveals the femaleness of the newly discovered 47-million-year-old fossil that could link to the human ancestors and prove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Jorn Hurum, a Norwegian paleontologist led the team to analyze the Darwinius masillae, which was named “Ida” after his daughter yesterday, May 19. It was found in Germany by an anonymous owner and turned over to the said paleontologist of Oslo’s National History Museum in Norway.
Scientists thought it was a primitive lemur but after the team conducted research and tests, the fossil has been discovered to be 95% complete due to its missing left rear leg and believed to have anthropoid features, which could be “the first link to all humans, the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor,” according to Hurum.
Research studies reveal that Ida was approximately 9 months old (six year-old human) when she died. Based on the scientists’ theory, she suffered a fracture that made her left wrist injured and that when she went off to the lake to drink, carbon dioxide fumes lost her. In addition, they predicted that due to her broken wrist, she became unconscious and has been drifted into the water, which made her preserved for 47 million years.
