Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last

October 1, 2009 8:45 AM

Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last. (Single Link Carl Zimmer)
posted by HumanComplex (20 comments total)

SO FUCKING COOL. Thanks!
posted by Greg Nog at 8:57 AM on October 1, 2009

NSFW image maybe? Just joking, cool post!
posted by Balisong at 9:02 AM on October 1, 2009

Excellent post, thank you.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:06 AM on October 1, 2009

Balisong: "NSFW image maybe?"

I thought the same thing. But then I've always had a thing for women with prehensile feet.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:12 AM on October 1, 2009

Must call her Shirley, as in:
Shirley this...
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:16 AM on October 1, 2009

Helo and Sharon are going to be so pissed.
posted by felix betachat at 9:18 AM on October 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

YAY POTENTIAL CONCESTORS!
posted by Jofus at 9:26 AM on October 1, 2009

Mom?
posted by monospace at 9:26 AM on October 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yes! I was just about to post this. So cool.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:30 AM on October 1, 2009

Excellent post, thank you.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 12:06 PM on October 1

Eponynevermind.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:59 AM on October 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

More on "Ardi" in National Geographic.
posted by exogenous at 12:13 PM on October 1, 2009

from exogenous's Nat Geo link:

> previously known hominids—members of our ancestral lineage—walked upright on two
> legs, like us. But Ardi's feet, pelvis, legs, and hands suggest she was a biped on the
> ground but a quadruped when moving about in the trees.

What are they trying to get at here? I'm a quadraped when I move about in a tree. Even if it's an easy one with big limbs close to the ground. Oh, and I'm ancestral to a couple of primates.

I had several primatology courses in grad school and I don't remember any primate species known to run along branches on two legs.
posted by jfuller at 12:29 PM on October 1, 2009

Fascinating. This is big news. Hope it gets way more comments! Can you put Ardipithecusramidus in the tags?

So interesting.

"The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas. As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like."
posted by cashman at 1:37 PM on October 1, 2009

More Carl Zimmer: Can Evolution Run in Reverse? A Study Says It’s a One-Way Street
posted by homunculus at 5:20 PM on October 1, 2009

It is fake
posted by dov3 at 6:19 PM on October 1, 2009

"fuck the damn creationist, i say it with authority"
posted by djduckie at 7:27 PM on October 1, 2009

Let us check in on what the good folks at Rapture Ready have to say!
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 7:54 PM on October 1, 2009

the good folks at Rapture Ready

Here's what they have to say to one person who's trying to sort out various bizarro interpretations of the biblical timeline to make them work with the scientific evidence:

Maybe the problem your having is that you're trying to fit God into what you know about "science". Maybe that's the wrong way. Maybe instead you should try to fit science into what you know about God.

Don't start from the proposition that everything you learned in science class was correct, and then try to make God fit into that picture. Instead, start from the position that everything in the bible is true, and then try to see how science fits in with that. If it doesn't fit, it's the current world's view that's wrong, not the bible.

My brain wants to percieve this as pitch-perfect awesome satire, but I've been hurt before.
posted by lostburner at 6:55 AM on October 2, 2009

Yep, Poe's Law at work.

It looks like nothing more than a very old gorilla. Perhaps a type that when extinct centuries ago. Do these scientists ever think of that?

Touché!
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 1:20 PM on October 2, 2009

WHAT?? Must be a mistake. As stated in the recent"Why Evolution is True," --the general trend of fossils clearly shows a change from apelike to humanlike features.
posted by CDevoclast at 7:57 PM on October 18, 2009