It appears that the much heralded "missing link," I reported on the other day is not heralded as such by everyone. Chris Beard is the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He argues in this piece that although this discovery can be seen as significant for some reasons (read the piece), it most certainly cannot be considered a "missing link."
Heres' an excerpt:
In order to establish that connection, Ida would have to have anthropoid-like features that evolved after anthropoids split away from lemurs and other early primates. Here, alas, Ida fails miserably.
So, Ida is not a "missing link" – at least not between anthropoids and more primitive primates. Further study may reveal her to be a missing link between other species of Eocene adapiforms, but this hardly solidifies her status as the "eighth wonder of the world".
Instead, Ida is a remarkably complete specimen that promises to teach us a great deal about the biology of some of the earliest and least human-like of all known primates, the Eocene adapiforms. For this, we can all celebrate her discovery as a real advance for science."
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