ABC News: 'Ardi:' Fossil Brings Us Closer to Common Ancestor of Humans and Apes -

Scientists today told the world what they know about Ardipithecus ramidus -- "Ardi" for short -- the oldest pre-human species yet found. Ardi lived 4.4 million years ago in  Ethiopia. On Friday a major research study will be released on this fossil that is neither human or a chimpanzee.

Artist's conception of what Ardipithecus ramidus would have looked like 4.4 million years ago.
(J.H. Matternes/Science/ABC News Photo Illustration)

"This may be the most important specimen in the history of evolutionary biology," said C. Owen Lovejoy, an anthropologist at Kent State University in Ohio.

Lovejoy was one of more than 40 researchers who analyzed the Ardi fossils.

Ardi is not the long-sought "missing link" -- the ancestor that scientists say humans and apes have in common -- but comes close. It shows that both human beings and apes have evolved from something, about six million years ago, that did not look much like either.

 Ardipithecus ramidus skull

The highlight of the study is a female skeleton a million years older than Lucy, the primitive female figure that has long symbolized humankind's beginnings. Now all that has changed.

Some scientists believe Lucy, which was an Australopithecus, was a descendent of the modern Bonobo, a chimpanzee species.

"What we found in Ethiopia at 4.4 million years ago is the closest we've ever come to that ancestor along our own line," White said.

See the rest of the article at http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/ardi-fossil-brings-us-closer-common-ancestor-humans/story?id=8716359

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