Missing link between humans and apes found

[Juche]

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Scientists believe that a group of apelike hominids known as Australopithicus, which first emerged in Africa around 3.9 million years ago, gradually evolved into the first Homo species.

Over time the Australopithicus species lost their more apelike features as they started to stand upright and their brain capacity increased.

Around 2.5 million years ago Homo habilis, the first species to be described as distinctly human, began to appear, although only a handful of specimens have ever been found.

It is thought that the new fossil to be unveiled this week will be identified as a new species that fits somewhere between Australopithicus and Homo habilis.

If it is confirmed as a missing link between the two groups, it would be of immense scientific importance, helping to fill in a gap in the evolutionary history of modern man.

Dr Simon Underdown, an expert on human evolution at Oxford Brookes University, said the new find could help scientists gain a better understanding of our evolutionary tree.

He said: "A find like this could really increase our understanding of our early ancestors at a time when they first started to become recognisable as human."

The discovery is the most important find from Sterkfontein since an almost-complete fossil of a 3.3 million year old Australopithecus, nicknamed Little Foot, was found in 1994.

Another major discovery was the well-preserved skull of a 2.15 million year old Australopithecus africanus, nicknamed Mrs Ples, in 1947.

Finding almost complete fossilised skeletons of human ancestors is particularly prized by the scientific community.

The presence of a pelvis and complete limb bones would allow scientists to unravel the posture and method of walking used by the extinct species.

If the specimen also contains hand bones, it could provide clues about the species' dexterity and such evidence will prove crucial in determining when the ability of modern humans to handle stone tools first emerged.


Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/7550033/Missing-link-between-man-and-apes-found.html

---

About time

[harry_pothead]

1. There's already loads of evidence for evolution.

One more piece is not going to change creationist minds.

[FreakinDJ]

10. TeaBaggers ARE the missing link

[quaker bill]

16. More accurately,

a throwback to the missing link.

[tblue37]

25. I prefer to think that they are a branch unrelated to the branch

we are on.

[FarLeftFist]

52. Rush Limbaugh?

[Zambero]

62. I think you've nailed it!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8440337

[Bigmack]

53. Teabaggers are the "missing link" between

the slow loris and chimps. Ms Bigmack

[AlphaCentauri]

63. or maybe defective mutant n/t

[Lorien]

65. also known as homo hillbillius. nt

[Tutankhamun]

82. LOL. Homo Hillbillyus

[Raksha]

84. LOL! Good one!

[tango-tee]

89. Thanks for the early-morning laugh!

What a wonderful way to start the day - :hi:

[awoke_in_2003]

74. Please

do not denigrate apes :)

[BlueMTexpat]

2. At first I thought that this was just another post

about Sarah Palin. :evilgrin:

[upi402]

3. no no no no no

J D Hayworth!

[Jim Sagle]

4. Ahh yess...

[No Elephants]

6. First creature that came to my mind.

[feslen]

32. that's insulting the chimp!

ha!

[sagat]

5. Neat.

.

[UpInArms]

15. ...

:hi:

[OneBlueSky]

7. Dickeus Cheneypithicus, perhaps? . . . n/t

.

[Myrina]

44. ... that one is of the cold-blooded lizard species...

:hi:

[Garbo 2004]

8. Title of article is misleading. Find is not a "missing link" between apes and humans.

A "missing link" of that nature would be the common ancestor of apes & humans before their paths diverged.

Which this find is clearly not if it's a hominid that lived after the bipedal australopithecus (think Lucy, for example) and before homo habilis.

But a new find is interesting nonetheless.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. +1

Once again, the lay media uses idiotic, misleading, and tabloid-style terms (most notably in headlines) to describe this type of find as a way to garner more eyeballs. I had just finished reading the article before coming here to DU and finding the article linked on the front page. Within the body of the article, the more accurate terminology of describing the find as filling "the gaps", was actually used. It is guaranteed that scientists will continue to find fossils that "fill in the gaps" for the evolution of modern humanity, from single-cell organism through to Homo Sapiens sapiens. But there will never be anything resembling some mythical "missing link", thanks to the huge huge variability of the genetics of related and ever-evolving organisms.

[edhopper]

64. Yes

From Wikipedia

A popular term used to designate transitional forms is "missing links". The term tends to be used in the popular media, but is avoided in the scientific press as it relates to the links in the Great Chain of Being, a pre-evolutionary concept now abandoned. In reality, the discovery of more and more transitional fossils continues to add to knowledge of evolutionary transitions, making many of the "missing links" missing no more (see List of transitional fossils)

[14thColony]

12. My thoughts as well

Plus terms like "missing link" play to the now outdated notion that there was a direct linear progression from one form to another, instead of the more likely circumstance of many australopithicine groups and hominid groups living in many places in overlapping periods, possibly even interbreeding with older populations or diverged populations. Human evolution is more like a bowl of spaghetti than a single line. Frankly it's amazing there's only one hominid species on earth today, something that hasn't been the case in millions of years.

[tblue37]

26. Probably there is only one ebcause the one we belong to was more agressive and murderous than its

evolutionary cousins and wiped them all out--the same way we are wiping out other species on the planet because if the aggressiveness and excessive greed of so many of our species' members. (BTW, we are working on wiping out the rest of our evolutionary cousins right now--i.e., the other species of apes.)

[14thColony]

42. Interesting proposition

That somehow our aggression evolved to give us an evolutionary edge over competitors, especially other hominids. I do find it interesting though that chimpanzees, alleged to be our nearest relatives among the great apes, are proportionally far more murderous and aggessive than nearly any H. Sapiens population. Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel cites a study that found that around 30% of all male chimps in the wild die as a result of violence by their brethren, making the murder rate in most human population look like peace on earth by comparison. Yet violence is very rare within or between bonobo groups, and bonobos are extremely closely related to chimpanzees, far closer than we are.

So I wonder if we retained this aggression from a common ancestor while other hominids and modern great apes didn't, or if we and chimpanzees evolved or re-evolved it separately due to similar circumstances.

It was also interesting that the only human groups Diamond could find that had a similar murder rate to chimps were the hunter-gatherer tribes of highland New Guineau. One could argue that hunter-gatherer H. Sapiens are closer to our hominid ancestors, who are closer to living great apes, and therefore it's possible extreme aggression and violence was the norm for all hominids, and we were just a whole lot better at it.

[pipoman]

91. I think

future scientists studying our culture would completely disagree that "there's only one hominid species on earth today". Everyone is so worried about being 'equal' and completely homogeneous in this age of political correctness that we are loosing the distinctions which make us unique.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. That depends on your definitions of 'human' and 'ape'

By one definition, humans are a subset of apes, and so you may say there's no 'link' at all.

You could say 'human' means the living species, ie Homo sapiens sapiens, and 'ape' means the living apes that aren't humans, eg chimpanzees, gorillas, gibbons etc. In which case your definition of 'missing link between apes and humans' would fit. But then, I'd ask you what you would call that common ancestor. Not an ape, by your definition.

You could say 'human' means anything in the genus Homo, and 'ape' means 'anything else in the ape superfamily Hominoidea'; in which case this new discovery might be called a missing link between the two - either the oldest specimen in Homo, or something from Australopithecus that is the most likely ancestor of the Homo genus found so far.

You could say 'human' means anything in the 'tribe' Hominini, ie Homo, Australopithecus, Ardipithecus and maybe more, and 'ape' is 'others from Hominoidea'. In which case the 'missing link' would be at about the same point as with the definition that only using living species.

I'm not quote sure why the definition of apes as 'apes that are alive now', or a definition of Australopithecus as a human, is meant to be superior to one that classifies Australopithecus as an ape. There are universities that call Australopithecus an ape.

[wial]

20. important to remember also

there used to be a lot of other apes and hominids, but our ancestors actively killed them all when they weren't driven to extinction other ways, often as consequences of our actions, or from climate change. The few species of apes left are just those who managed to hide from us this long.

It would be a lot harder for fundamentalists to deny evolution if we weren't such a genocidal species. The only reason we're as unique as we are (not special as they would have it) is we killed our closest relatives. We aren't even unique in that. Big cats make a point of trying to kill other big cats, for instance. We just happened to get very good at it.

[Chulanowa]

86. There's no evidence for this, actually

It's a favored argument of people who love to get maudlin about how evil and terrible H. Sapiens is, though.

It's far more likely that hominids are simply one of those "goofy" evolutionary branches that pops up, looks and acts funny, then goes extinct because it's just not that good at surviving in its environment for a long period.

We're successful in spite of the fact we pretty much suck at living everywhere that we do, because we're able to alter our surroundings to be more conductive - but in the long run, that seems to be catching up with us.

I imagine that earlier hominid species were just as awkward, evolutionarily speaking.

[and-justice-for-all]

46. Humans are cousins of Apes, not monkeys.

Apes and Humans share a common ancestor.

[muriel_volestrangler]

51. And would you call that common ancestor an ape?

Are you using the definition "only living species get called 'apes'", or one of the others (such as "any hominoid that is not Homo sapiens sapiens")?

'Cousin' is not a useful word here. Go further back, and humans and monkeys (and any ape, for that matter) also have a common ancestor. Why do you say that humans are cousins of apes, but not monkeys?

And remember, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas. That's why the division into 'apes' and 'humans' isn't quite as straightforward as it might seem.

[wial]

19. correct

the telegraph isn't exactly the most progressive newspaper in the world, but I'm often beyond appalled by mainstream media science reporting in general. CNN is downright awful for instance (at least since they canned Miles O'Brien), and even Huffington Post can make my blood run cold. It's small wonder people like the commentators on that article can still harbor such outlandish ideas as they do in this day and age.

I suppose you could consider it a missing link in the sense of another detail in the long estabished chain between humans and apes.

Certainly it will add a lot to the already large knowledge base!

[Aleric]

27. mangled science...ugh

+1. If we are going to continue to have the evolution/creation debate out in public, can we please not mangle the science?

[Kali]

43. there is no fucking debate

it is ridiculous that we even engage with ignorant creationists

[protocol rv]

38. How can there be a missing link?

I believe the term missing link is an oxymoron. Evolution from hominid to homo sapiens is a continuum, therefore since we evolve over time it's impossible to find the "missing link", that would require the discovery of fossils covering 150,000 generations. And that's impossible.

[hunter]

40. If anyone's asking me, humans ARE apes.

I'd throw our species in with the chimpanzees and rename us Pan vulgaris. I don't have much patience for human exceptionalism.

Some future species that's actually intelligent (land squid, aliens, machines, who knows?) is going to look back on us and be most amazed about the amount of trash we left and the mass extinction we caused. Obviously we were not intelligent...

One might speculate that our low technology decedents, living lightly upon the land because nature won't support our kind of technology anymore, will branch out into many species again, leaving the hominid family tree looking very much as it has for the last 5 million years.

Our ancestors were apes, our descendants will be apes, therefore we are apes.

[14thColony]

48. Certainly in the broad scheme of things we are "the naked apes"

and can firmly be placed among the great apes, even though we belong to the hominidae line. But "human exceptionalism" does exist biologically; speciation occurs when interbreeding between a group and the original population ends, either due to choice or physical incompatibility. Since no two great ape species (humans, chimps, gorillas. etc) interbreed, or are even capable of doing so, we all meet the definition of separate species.

On the intelligence issue, I remember a quote by an anthropologist who said "It remains to be seen whether higher intelligence will end up being an evolutionary advantage or yet another evolutionary dead end."

[Teaser]

49. "Our ancestors were apes, our descendants will be apes, therefore we are apes."

we are all fish.

[mike_c]

67. there is plenty of justification for Homo...

...but by the same token, no one seriously disputes that we are all great apes-- Pan, Homo, Gorilla, and Pongo, all in the family Hominidae (to avoid paraphyly), although it seems more appropriate to me to name the family Pongidae, as it was originally, but with Homo included as it is now.

[47of74]

11. My first thought was that it was going to be another story about the actual missing link

You know,

[smirkymonkey]

93. +100

[deutsey]

13. Like Rocky said to Bullwinkle, "Again?!"

[Lost4words]

22. Natasha, yes Boris, Moose and Squirrel are smoking reefer!

[wilt the stilt]

14. Curly n/t

[Odin2005]

18. I've read a very interesting book by one of the discoverers of Little Foot.

Amazing stuff. The author argued that Little Foot was an ancestor of Au. africanus (and Au. Africanus was the ancestor of H. habilis), while Lucy's species, Au. Afarensis, was the ancestor of the "Robust Astralopithicines", genus Paranthropus.

[Lost4words]

21. self delete, thanks

[tpsbmam]

23. I was so surprised when I saw what it was -- I thought they were going to say

George W. Bush. Color me astonished!

[stray cat]

24. More accurately; evidence of another species between humans and apes found

[Jackpine Radical]

28. MISSING?

Bush is missing? Where was he last seen?

[DailyGrind51]

29. We've known about the Australopithicenes for some time now.

Ever since the Leakey's discovered Australopithecus afarensis in Oulduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

[MajorChode]

31. They won't be able to teach it in Texas for fear of another Scopes monkey trial

[Voice for Peace]

30. Mrs. Pies? nt

[AlbertCat]

33. There is no "missing" link.

Every form and species is a "link" to the next one! :eyes:

What a dumb headline. It doesn't help people who don't "get" evolution.

Anyway... I will now read the thing....

[jgraz]

41. Beat me to it. 100 years later, they're still using this misleading term

I wonder how many creationists have been inspired by this sloppy use of language.

[Bucky]

55. Technically so. Once they find it, it's no longer missing.

I'm looking for the missing link between humans and hippopotamuseses.

[starroute]

34. This sounds more like it's more about politics than science

One thing that sets off alarm bells for me is that it's never been firmly established that Homo habilis was either a distinct species or the ancestor of modern humans.

As the article says, "only a handful" of H. habilis remains have ever been found, even though the species was first proclaimed in 1964. And I've seen suggestions -- I believe from Donald Johanson, the discoverer of "Lucy" -- that even those specimens may be no more than slightly larger brained australopithecines.

That is, they consist of a few isolated individuals, all of whom lived at the same times and places as larger numbers of australopithecines. Their bodies are indistinguishable from those of australopithecines -- long arms, short legs, and so forth. And there is no indication of any evolutionary trend from the earlier to the later samples in the direction of greater humanness.

At the same time, the recent discovery of the "hobbits" on the island of Flores indicates that some australopithecines left Africa at an extremely early date. And a large number of finds of early Homo erectus -- everywhere from Indonesia to Spain -- which are around the same age as the oldest African example suggest that H. erectus may have appeared somewhere in Asia and not in Africa.

There are also more subtle lines of evidence, such as the fact that humans are vulnerable to the AIDS virus in a way that the great apes of Africa are not, suggesting that our ancestors were not living in Africa some 2 million years ago when the ancestral form of AIDS first swept through primate populations there.

There is a huge leap between the bodies of australopithecines, who were almost chimp-like except for walking upright, and those of erectus, which from the neck down differ only in relatively minor ways from those of modern humans. And 50 years of poking around in Africa has never turned up any sign of the real "missing link" between those two forms.

But the final alarm bell for me is how heavily politicized this discovery appears to be. "The find is deemed to be so significant that Jacob Zuma, the South African president, has visited the university to view the fossils and a major media campaign with television documentaries is planned."

The fossils are no doubt interesting, but the notion that they represent a "missing link" between australopithecines and a species which itself has never been proven to exist seems more than a bit ludicrous.

[uberllama42]

35. There's no such thing as a missing link

That's a term more favored by creationists than scientists. There is no special fossil that will magically fill a gap in evolutionary history.

This is the second find in the last year to be unveiled under the pretense of being the "missing link." Remember Ardipithicus ramidus? That was hyped--primarily by the Discovery Channel--as the missing link that finally proved evolution was true, but it was just the latest in a long progression, including the earlier fossils mentioned in the article, to be described that way.

The Telegraph is doing its readers a disservice by misreporting this story like this.

[Bucky]

36. The conservatives already beat us to the missing link. They found him and nominated him 10 years ago

My apologies to all simians for the preceding joke.

[RedCloud]

37. That was Homo Please Don't Erectus.

A branch of humanity whose homophobic tendencies lead to extinction.

[Joe Chi Minh]

39. Letting your enthusiasm override your reason a tad, aren't you, Juche?

"If it is confirmed as a missing link between the two groups,...." - Richard Gray

"Missing link between humans and apes found." - Juche

'Nuff said about the command of basic English of the "naive realist".

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. That's the Telegraph's headline, not Juche's

Juche has to use the Telegraph headline if this is in LBN.

[Joe Chi Minh]

58. So, it is, Muriel. What I said to Juche evidently applies to Richard Gray,

despite his subsequent, significant qualification of his headline's import. My apologies to you, Juche.

[and-justice-for-all]

45. There are more than enough of a fossil history

to validate Evolution as a fact, also the DNA history of life makes Evolution water tight and not to mention all of the other empirical evidence that clearly demonstrates that Evolution is a solid FACT.

It should be The Law Of Evolution.

[comrade snarky]

72. Law is meaningless in scientific terms

Theory is as good as it gets.

There is gravity, that's a fact. The theory of gravity is the best explanation for how it does what it does. The "law" of gravity is just a generalization based on lots of observed facts.

It's the same with evolution. There are observed changes in life over time. Genetic variation in offspring that can build over time and result in speciation. There's also the observed fact of fossil record in which life appears to have changed over time. The Theory of Evolution is the explanation for this change. Natural selection, genetic drift and the like.


Funny thing about using gravity as an example is the we have a far better idea of the inner working of evolution than we do of gravity. If we understood gravity as well as we understand evolution I'd have my flying car by now. :-)

[AlbertCat]

80. Theory is as good as it gets.

Indeed.

After all, we cannot set up and run the experiment over to see if we get the same results.

Just like gravity... We cannot move planets and galaxies around and run those experiments. But we can make very good models and confirm predictions based on the theory.

A good theory makes predictions that can be tested. Evolution may be the best at this. For instance, Darwin knew nothing about genetics but knew some mechanism was passing small variations and traits down the generations.... the prediction. Later genetics filled the bill. Like the theory of gravity predicts something outrageous called a Black Hole, And now of course we have actually found them (or concrete evidence of them.)

[and-justice-for-all]

95. I will have to disagree...nt

[comrade snarky]

98. Maybe I can explain what I mean a little better

To keep with the gravity example, what we call the "Law of Gravity" is based on Newton's groundbreaking work. We call them laws because for hundreds of years they proved accurate.

But wait... there are some observations that happened around the end of the 1800s that Newton's laws couldn't explain. One was that the orbit of Mercury didn't fit with Newton's laws of motion. The planet was ending up in what looked like the wrong place and no one knew why. Then along cam Einstein. His proposal of The Theory Relativity predicted the orbit of Mercury would be exactly what was observed.

Newtonian Laws of Motion didn't work. Relativity Theory did.

Newton's laws break down when something is really big or really fast which turns out to be kind of the same thing but that's a whole other kettle of fish. :-) Relativistic effects do happen on smaller, slower objects but they are so tiny we'd never see them without very precise measurements. For something like a thrown baseball Newton works well, it's still slightly wrong though if you want to get picky.

Then a little later people noticed that Relativity has some problems with the very, very, super small stuff. In comes Quantum Theory and a sack full of conjecture to explain why Relativity doesn't work at that level. Now we may be looking down the hadron collider barrel of something newer like String Theory to explain the bit's Quantum Theory doesn't.

That's how science works and why theory is the best we can do. We've learned that new ideas will probably come along and explain what we observe better than what we thought before. The theory of Darwinian Evolution (a long slow steady set of changes) becomes Punctuated Equilibrium evolutionary theory because it better explains the observed evidence. Each new theory encompasses what came before and improves our ability to explain what is seen.

That's why science has abandoned the "Law" paradigm. The people who used it kept getting burned when the universal truth of a law turned out to be slightly wrong, and then slightly more wrong again.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

47. Wow, the Telegraph butchers another science story

And while I'm not surprised, it pisses me off.

Here are my problems with it:
1. The idea of a "missing link" is a creationist construct and presupposes that a single individual or entity popped up one day like magic and can be shown as a bridge between our older ancestors and modern humans. Since evolutionary change works on a really long time scale, and each change is rather small, our history as a species is a long progressive series of changes rather than a single "wham-bam" change to a species that marked the start of humanity and the end of our ancestors.

2. The title of the article mentions a "missing link", but it doesn't appear that the scientists are making such a claim. This is purposefully dishonest by the newspaper (but it IS the Telegraph, so why should I be surprised).

3. Since the actual find hasn't been unveiled, it's inappropriate for the newspaper to make claims about the specimen that haven't yet been released. They're relying on conjecture to sell newspaper. I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya!

[wickerwoman]

78. Yep, "missing link" is a trap.

Even if we found a skeleton exactly halfway between Australopithecus and homo habilis (or erectus) all they would do is move the fence posts to say "so where's the missing link between the new skeleton and Australopithecus?"

It wouldn't matter if we found every single descendant from Lucy to George Bush. People who are determined not to accept evolution will find reasons not to.

Meanwhile, all you have to do is go to a bloody farm to see evolution in action.

[anachro1]

50. Isn't finding Sarah Palin enough?

[Taverner]

56. Funny, I thought the missing link was going to be members of Free Republic

:rofl:

[alfredo]

81. He's left handed, so he can't be a member of FR

[vssmith]

57. Rush?

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ticonderoga]

60. Keep it down,

Those church begging baskets need all the ca$h they can get. This is not helpful.

[Zambero]

61. Other recent detections

Large bands of clueless apelike demonstrators sporting teabags and carrying nonsensical signs outside the Capitol building in DC. This subspecies also has much in common with lemmings, as their self-destructive 'copycat' behavior is almost always in direct conflict with their own best interests. Smaller contingents (var. bachmanii) have also been spotted on the Capitol balconies although scientific evidence points to this subgroup being much less advanced from an evolutionary perspective, as a result of a persistent cold-blooded lizard brain retention. My sincere apologies if my comments seem disparaging to apes and lizards.

[D23MIURG23]

66. All fossils are transitional forms or "links" - there isn't one in particular that is missing

between humans and our hominid ancestors. In as much as evolution is in continuous progress, all forms are in a constant state of transition.

See if you can spot the "missing link" in this picture:



http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/jaffor/jaffor_intelligent_design.html

Right.

I dislike the "missing link" misnomer, because it gives the impression that there is some reason to doubt that humanity evolved, or alternately that our linkage to other primates is poorly characterized. Neither of these impressions is actually true.

[hunter]

68. I like to think of it as a big hairy tree.

It's easy to model with string.

[D23MIURG23]

88. For a second I thought you meant the primate.

That cracked me up.

[lovuian]

69. So Planet of the Apes was right

WOW

[CrisisPapers]

70. Missing link

"Scientists have discovered the missing link between apes and civilized human beings. It's us!"

Jean Shepherd

[Joey Liberal]

71. Sarah Palin?

Hahahaha

[Zambero]

75. Wasillius Palinii? It actually precedes the apes!

It's somewhere down on the ancient food chain between a banana slug and a trilobite.

[Joey Liberal]

94. Wasillius Palinii - hahahaha

That's great!

[tabatha]

73. I attended a lecture by Professor Lee Berger

in 1997. I also bought his book. He had interesting theories.

http://www.profleeberger.com/

Berger is an American who moved to Wits University (my Univ) some years ago.

[Odin2005]

76. That's the author of the book I mentioned above. Thanks!

[defendandprotect]

77. Think we're hybrids . . .

[MilesColtrane]

79. Missing link...heh, heh

Maybe they should call it the 404ithicus.

[Optimistic]

83. Want to see a Picture.

Look up Glen Beck..Proof of the missing Link

[Honeycombe8]

85. It's a myth that evolution says humans are descended from "apes."

Right wingers love to say that, but the theory of evolution has never involved humans descending from "apes."

The theory is that both ape and human had a COMMON ancestor. The theory is that for some reason, that ancestor split, resulting in ape descendents on the one hand, and human descendents on the other. In the beginning, the theory goes (as I recall it), there is a vast difference between the ape line and the australopithicus-which-becomes-humans line, but then again, not that much difference in other ways.

So when we see a gorilla in a zoo, we are not looking at an ancestor. We are looking at something more like a cousin. We share a common ancestor way up the line somewhere, so the theory goes. All we have to do is look at a chimp, and we can see it. Much like we can tell cousin Bobbie Jo or Uncle Fred is related to us. (Plus, our dna and chimps are 99% alike.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

96. A chimp is an ape too

So if chimps are apes, and gorillas are apes, shouldn't we call their common ancestor an ape?

And we are descended from that common ancestor. The chimps' closest relation is us. The tree is:

  \
   \
    \
     \
    / \
   /   \
  /     \
gibbons  \
          \
         / \
        /   \
       /     \
 orangutans   \
               \
              / \
             /   \
            /     \
       gorillas    \
                    \
                   / \
                  /   \
                 /     \
             chimps   humans

[sheldon]

87. Posted the article to my facebook...

Waiting for some heads to explode!
Gotta love the knee-jerk reactions this stuff garners.

[Kablooie]

90. You mean, missing link between old apes and older apes. Humans are separate, created in God's image.

and I haven't seen any bible pictures of God looking like an ape.

It's so amazing that all these creatures lived on earth together only 5000 years ago.

It must have been a very crowded place.

[totodeinhere]

92. I thought that George Bush was the missing link between apes and humans.

And let me apologize to the apes of the world for comparing them to that dip shit. LOL.

[Elmore Furth]

97. Here's a pricture of the missing link delivering a Fox News commentary

[underpants]

99. Dr Simon Underdown

Now THAT'S a name

[Old Troop]

100. I believe its name was Curly

[sludlig]

101. speciation

I've finally figured out what is going on here with the Teabaggers.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing speciation in action -- the Teabaggers are in the process of splitting off from the rest of humanity to become a novel biological species.

Within a few generations, we will see them begin to have distinct breeding preferences for eachother.

20 generations out, they will cease to be able to breed with humans, as they will have shed any vestiges of sexual organs in favor of asexual budding.

They will develop a protuberance halfway down their back, roughly shaped like Sarah Palin's head. It will annually produce an exact clone, plopping out of Sarah's mouth with a loud 'You Betcha - PLOP'. This method of reproduction suits the Teabaggers as a) It removes any concept of pleasure from reproduction and b) It assures an exact replica -- and if there is one things baggers like, it's people that look like them.

About 40 generations out, the baggers will have shed most of the DNA that they no longer need. All that will remain of the human genome is part of the 14th chromosome, as some of the baggers *swear* that they can see the Virgin Mary's figure in it.

About 80 generations out, their head will have shrunken and elongated to the shape of a banana. It will have completed it's migration down their back, and firmly implanted itself in their rear; this accomplishes the ultimate evolution of the bagger - they get to hear, see and taste their own excrement 24 hours a day. It also adds to their voice a slightly muffled tone, which sounds much like the bleatings of Rush Limbaugh.

I am telling ya -- evolution in progress before our very eyes.