LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK — A 47-million-year-old primate fossil that is so complete scientists can even tell what the animal's last meal was promises to shed new light on the earliest stages of evolution of the lineage that eventually led to humans, researchers said Tuesday.
The unprecedented fossil of a lemur-like creature that probably weighed no more than 2 pounds when it was fully grown is remarkable because it is the most complete primate specimen ever obtained.
For the most part, the story of primate evolution has been pieced together from fossilized skulls, jawbones and the occasional foot -- leaving large gaps in anatomy for researchers to fill in with informed speculation.
"This fossil is so complete . . . it is unheard of in the primate record," said paleontologist Jorn H. Hurum of the University of Oslo. "You have to get to a human burial to see something this complete."
Hurum is the lead author of a paper that appeared Tuesday in the online journal PLoS One as part of a massive publicity campaign. The same day, the information about the primate was revealed at a Hollywood premiere-like news conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where a replica of the fossil is now on display. Even New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg showed up for the event.
A book about the discovery, called "The Link," will be published today by Little Brown and Co., and a documentary with the same name will air Monday on the History Channel.
Asked about the unusual amount of hype surrounding the announcement, Hurum was unrepentant. "That's part of getting science out to the public, to get attention," he said. "I don't think that is so wrong."
As is evident from the title of the book and documentary, the fossil is being promoted as a kind of "missing link" in the evolution of humans. But the researchers themselves are more circumspect.
"It is a representative of an ancestral group giving rise to all kinds of higher primates," Hurum said. "We are not dealing with our great-great-great-grandmother but perhaps our great-great-great-aunt."
But critics say it's not even that closely related.
"It's more like our third cousin twice removed," said paleontologist Chris Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History at Johns Hopkins University. "It's part of the primate family tree that is about as far away from humans as you can get and still be a primate."
