The Link
Author | : Colin Tudge |
Publisher | : Hachette UK |
Total Pages | : 198 |
Release | : 2011-09-01 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781405511766 |
ISBN-13 | : 1405511761 |
Rating | : 4/5 (66 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: The astonishing new discovery that could change everything . . . Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by an astonishing forty-four million years. A secret until now, the fossil - 'Ida'- is the most complete early primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites what we've assumed about the earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled. With exclusive access to the first scientists to study her, the award-winning science writer Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the world. The Link offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest origins - and the magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective story that followed her discovery. At the same time it opens a stunningly evocative window into our past and changes what we know about primate evolution and, ultimately, our own.