Mei 到處 8

Laser scanners combined with a computerized photographic model produce a digital code of her body, which once processed creates an accurately 3D model.
 

Ida is a warm blood creature covered with thick fur, she is just under one meter long including her tail, which she used for balance as she scampered on all fours along the rain forest canopy, her opposable thumbs and toes gripped the branches.


Ida is probably activity at night, like us, her two large forward facing eyes gave her excellence stereoscopic vision.



How significant is she to our understanding of our evolution?  Does she belong on the evolutionary branch that leads to us???


The Eocene period in which she lived was a crucial time in the history life, without the developments that happened we will not exists now.

At some point during this new dawn, the primates split into two major groups.
The Prosimians (the non human branch) which still survive today, mainly as a modern lemurs.
The other branch the Antropoides has developed into monkeys, apes and ultimately us - humans.



The advantage of having a skeleton that is so completed, hopefully will let us make the connection to what came later.   In the sense, studying primate evolution is all about looking at the diversity living today and tracing that back through time.  What we are interested here to see is how apes & monkeys traced back, how lemurs traced back and which of these or all of them can we find in the Eocene.
 


The first guess of cause, because of the other specimen that were found in the Messel locality, of course is to say that this is a primitive lemur.
 


Most lemurs are of the size of monkeys, they have similar habits and life styles, but they are evolutionary side branch, they hardly changed fundamentally in 47 million years.

Prosimians species : Lemurs, Tarsiers, Loris, Galagos, & Pottos



Lemurs : Coquerels sifaka


 

Ring-tailed lemur


 

Lemurs second digit has a long grooming claw, on the hind foot.
 

Lemurs are using this for groom their fur.
 

Checking their teeth
 

Their front teeth in the lower jaw are a tooth comb.

 

Ida does not have a tooth comb and no grooming claw, she only has nails like humans.  Ida does not belonging to the lemurs.

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.

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!

………………  to be continued.