Forget Botox and tummy tucks. A little volcanic ash in Germany kept a 47-million-year-old small primate fossil from the Eocene looking pretty darn good. The 95-percent-complete skeleton is the most complete fossil primate ever found, researchers report online May 19 in PLoS ONE, and it offers an unparalleled glimpse at the life and times of an early primate.
“When it comes to spectacular specimens, you don’t get more spectacular than this one,” says Richard Kay, a paleontologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
Since its debut, some have heralded the small primate, named Ida, as a missing link in human evolution. But, “We don’t think this particular fossil or species is the direct ancestor of humans,” says study coauthor Holly Smith of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. More research will be needed to understand where the fossil fits into the primate picture, she says.