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To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (25327)	1/20/2005 9:58:42 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30928

modest too

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (25327)	1/20/2005 11:33:27 AM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30928

Hey GZ, the missing link, It is now final, the paleontologists have found some of your relatives! January 20, 2005 Ancient Hominid Found in Ethiopia Is Yielding Teeth Like the Apes' By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Paleontologists working in Ethiopia have discovered bones and teeth up to 4.5 million years old from at least nine members of a little-known hominid species that was a primitive ancestor of humans. The specimens are from Ardipithecus ramidus, a transitional creature with significant ape characteristics. The fossils are mostly teeth and jaw fragments, with some hand and foot bones, according to nine researchers from universities in the United States and Spain. Their findings appear today in the journal Nature. These are not the first such specimens but they are the latest in a growing collection of early human fragments that help explain the evolutionary history of humans. The discoveries were made over a four-year span beginning in 1999 in digs at As Duma, a site in the Afar region that has yielded many important fossils. Among the tooth specimens, the canines are small and blunt, similar to those of other human ancestors. But most of the teeth, including molars, are like those of great apes. The size and wear of the teeth suggest that A. ramidus ate a plant-based diet, the researchers reported. Scientists know little about A. ramidus. A few skeletal fragments suggest that it was even smaller than Australopithecus afarensis, the 3.6-million-year-old species widely known through the nearly complete "Lucy" fossil, which is about four feet tall. Evidence from other A. ramidus specimens shows its skull rested directly atop its spinal column, rather than in front like apes. This suggests it could walk upright, or at least on two feet. The first A. ramidus fossils were reported in 1994. With the nine additional specimens, labs now have fragments from as many as 60 individuals. The specimens were dated with geological and radiocarbon tests.