Ida is obviously a primate because she has nails on her digits rather than claws and she has opposable thumbs and big toes.
• Ida is female because she doesn’t have a baculum, or penis bone.
• She dates from around the time that our branch of the primates (the haplorhines) which includes monkeys and apes split from a second group including the lemurs, lorises, pottos and bush babies (the strepsirrhines).
• Key features of her skeleton suggest she is not an ancient lemur. She has no “grooming claw” on her second toe, a feature that all lemurs share. She also does not have a set of fused teeth in the middle of her bottom jaw called a “tooth comb”. Finally, the tarsus bone in her ankle is shaped like our ancestors. So it is likely that she is a very early haplorhine primate.
• Ida’s left wrist was broken, but had partly healed. The researchers believe this injury would have hampered her climbing and may have contributed to her death.
• Ida’s large eye holes in her skull suggest she was probably adapted for night vision and so was nocturnal.
• Her milk teeth are in place with adult teeth forming behind, indicating that she was still a juvenile – probably six to nine months old.
• Ida’s last meal is visible in her preserved stomach contents. It contained fruit and leaves, but no insects.
From the Guardian. May 2009
Ahhhh...the Guardian! Haven’t seen that one linked on FR in some time.
So far, it appears we have an old fossil of an old lemur that has since become extinct. Nothing out there as of yet in terms of fossils that one can compare this to, (no other lemurs like this one that I know of anyway) and certainly none around like this today.
That’s about all we can say with any certainty.
But the claims that this was the early “missing link” as it were...
well...
FAIL.
(How’s the hospice business on your end coming along?)