We all love the idea of a missing link. This is something I'm really looking forward to. In May of 2009 an extraordinary fossil hit the headlines. They called it Ida. You must be Dr Hooker. Hello, Jimmy. How are you? Nice to meet you. The original fossil has now returned to Oslo, but Dr Jerry Hooker has a cast perfect in every detail for display in pride of place at the Natural History Museum. The press hailed it as the long-lost missing link in human evolution. So this is the specimen? It is. Now, what is Ida? Ida is a primitive primate about 47 million years old, so quite early in the history of primates. So she's right at the beginning, I mean she's down here, isn't she? She's down there, that's right. It's the beginning as we know them. And we're up here. We're up here, yes. So she's a long way down. So. Yes. Would I be right in calling this a missing link? No, not really, it's a very misleading term. For a start, it's not missing, this one. And more or less any fossil is a link of some sort because it's a, it takes us back in time, but it's a term that was conjured up for ape men and really it's not appropriate.


进化纽带"迷失一环"的概念，引人入胜。下面这一环，我也非常期待。2009年5月，一块非同寻常的化石登上了头版头条，人们称它为“伊达”、 -您是胡克博士吧 -你好吗 吉米 很高兴见到你 原化石现已运回奥斯陆[挪威首都]，但杰里·胡克博士却另有一份完美副本。在自然历史博物馆中显眼位置展出，媒体称这块化石为人类进化史长久以来"迷失的一环"。 这就是那个标本吗？ -没错 -那伊达到底是谁呢？ 伊达是一只4700万年前的灵长类动物。在灵长类动物史上出现得非常早，所以她是老祖宗了。她在最下面，对吧? 位于最早期，没错，是已知最原始的灵长类。 -我们在上面 -没错 -她离我们很久远呢 -没错。算是"迷失的一环" 这说法对吗？ 不对，这个词有些误导读者。首先，它并没有迷失任何一块化石都是纽带。连接着现在与过去，这个词是用在猿人身上的，用在这里并不合适。