Lucy has moved from Japan and this blog. See lucylou.info for her latest posts.
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Looking at fossils always sends a chill down my back. To think, such an animal was once thriving like any living thing today, but has—over eons—turned into stone through the myriad of processes that go on on this planet. It is especially awe-inspiring when the bones belong to one of our own ancestors—something neither human nor ape, and unlike anything living today, yet so close to us that we may still find its traces in our own DNA.
How amazing is it that mere rodents running beneath the feet of dinosaurs could develop into a world full of creatures so different and varied that the only thing remaining in common among all modern mammals are three tiny bones in the middle ear? Furthermore, how astounding is it that a cat-sized lemur-like creature just trying to survive 47 million years ago would be the progenitor of a branch of intelligent, social apes, with a particularly intelligent and social sub-branch of them eventually developing the curiosity and skills to seek out their own origin? And how awesome is it that we’ve actually found our ancestors, can look them in the face, see that they look nothing like us, but know that whatever they did to survive whatever the world threw at them made it possible for us to develop?
Oh science, how you bring out the sappy geek in me! (Though I suppose she lays only skin-deep on a daily basis.)
Check out news on the discovery of Darwinius masillae, and feel some love for your fellow evolutionary successes (boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada!).
