This is just another piece in a much bigger puzzle? Yes, but it's a big piece. So if this fossil isn't a missing link, what makes it so important? Really, its completeness. Usually the sorts of material we have to deal with are bits and pieces, so like a jaw bone like this or a piece of leg bone like this. And often it's very difficult to know which jaw goes with which leg bone. Right. What we have here is something that's absolutely complete, and not only can we see that all the various bits are there. But we can then start to interpret the more fragmentary specimens that we have. You've got a puzzle with all the pieces already. Exactly. On top of that, in this case we also have an impression of the fur. Wow, yeah, look at that. And in this area, in the stomach and gut area, we have the remains of its last meal. So there are small leaf fragments and a fruit, piece of a fruit, and from that we know it was eating a mixture of leaves and fruit. So this is really like a snapshot in time. You can see its fur, what it had for breakfast, what it had for dinner. Not sure we can separate breakfast from dinner but. Yeah, it be a cornflake in there.


那么这是大拼图中的一小块吗？ 对，不过它可不小。如果这块化石不是迷失的一环 它为何如此重要？ 因为它的完整性，我们一般发现的灵长类化石都是小碎片，像这样的颌骨，或这样的一小块腿骨，同时很难确定。 这些碎骨是否属于同一个体 是的，但我们这个标本非常完整。全身各部分骨骼都完好，还能以它为依据，辨认其他已出土的碎片，可以把碎骨拼合起来了。 没错，不仅如此 我们还能观察到毛发。 没错，看啊。 而这一片，在胃和肠子里，我们发现了它最后一餐的残留物，有小叶子的碎片，还有一片水果，由此可以判断它以树叶与水果为食。这可以说是张历史快照，我们可以观察到它的毛发，它早餐和晚餐的食物，不太能区分是晚餐还是早餐，但... 那里可能是个谷壳。